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High-resolution record of climate stability in France during the last interglacial period

Nature volume 413, pages 293–296 (2001)Cite this article

Abstract

The last interglacial period (127–110 kyr ago) has been considered to be an analogue to the present interglacial period, the Holocene, which may help us to understand present climate evolution. But whereas Holocene climate has been essentially stable in Europe, variability in climate during the last interglacial period has remained unresolved, because climate reconstructions from ice cores1,2, continental records3,4 and marine sediment cores5,6 give conflicting results for this period7. Here we present a high-resolution multi-proxy lacustrine record of climate change during the last interglacial period, based on oxygen isotopes in diatom silica, diatom assemblages and pollen–climate transfer functions from the Ribains maar in France. Contrary to a previous study8, our data do not show a cold event interrupting the warm interglacial climate. Instead, we find an early temperature maximum with a transition to a colder climate about halfway through the sequence. The end of the interglacial period is clearly marked by an abrupt change in all proxy records. Our study confirms that in southwestern Europe the last interglacial period was a time of climatic stability and is therefore still likely to represent a useful analogue for the present climate.

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Figure 1: Combined data for the Ribains sediment core plotted against depth.
Figure 2: Ribains maar data of detrended correspondence analysis (DCA) for pollen and diatom assemblages and pollen-derived palaeoclimate reconstruction plotted against depth.

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Acknowledgements

The sediment core was retrieved thanks to the EU project Euromaar. This work was also supported by the TMR scheme operated by the EU, the UK NERC, the Israel Science Foundation and CNRS.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environmental Change Research Centre, University College London, 26 Bedford Way, London, WC1H 0AP, UK

    Patrick Rioual & Richard W. Battarbee

  2. Institut Méditerranéen d’Ecologie et Paléoécologie (UMR-CNRS 6116), UDESAM, Faculté des Sciences et Techniques de Saint Jérôme, Marseille, 13397 Cedex 20, France

    Valérie Andrieu-Ponel, Jacques-Louis de Beaulieu, Rachid Cheddadi & Maurice Reille

  3. Department of Environmental Sciences and Energy Research, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 76100, Israel

    Miri Rietti-Shati & Aldo Shemesh

  4. Botanical Institute, CZ-25243 Pruhonice, Prague, Czech Republic

    Helena Svobodova

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  1. Patrick Rioual
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Correspondence to Patrick Rioual.

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Rioual, P., Andrieu-Ponel, V., Rietti-Shati, M. et al. High-resolution record of climate stability in France during the last interglacial period. Nature 413, 293–296 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35095037

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