Seminar

Understanding the early to mid-Holocene climate mystery (~10-4 thousand years ago) is crucial for reliable projection of the future warming scenarios. However, temperature inconsistency between proxy-based reconstructions and model-derived simulations, namely ‘the Holocene temperature conundrum’, highlights the importance of understanding both global and regional temperature change during the Holocene and associated physical mechanisms. Here we present three alkenone-based summer temperature records over the past ~10,000 years from mid-latitude Eurasia (Lake Yihe, Sayram, and Ebeyty). Our results indicate a long-term Holocene cooling trend in Lake Yihe and Sayram, with several millennial-scale fluctuations superimposed on the cooling trend. The temperature of Lake Ebeyty, however, remains at a low level before 6,000 years BP, which show contrasting early to mid-Holocene temperature variation with Arid Central Asia and Monsoonal margin region of China (i.e., Lake Yihe and Sayram). We speculate that the spatial heterogeneity of Holocene temperature might be related to the atmospheric teleconnection influence on the northern hemisphere mid-high latitudes.