Synchronicity of Holocene climate changes in Europe and North America

We estimated transitions in pollen diagrams from Europe using two sets of data. The first is radiocarbon dates from the European Pollen Database that are assumed to preferentially date transitions in vegetation. A second is the Pollen Assemblage Zones defined by palynologists in a series of regional summaries (Berglund, B., et al., eds. 1996. Palaeoecological events during the last 15 000 years. J Wiley). Major transitions in Holocene and late-glacial vegetation, as recorded in pollen diagrams, were widespread throughout Europe and synchronous with vegetation transitions identified in North America as well as major environmental changes recorded in North Atlantic marine records and Greenland ice cores. This synchronicity suggests that the major vegetation transitions in Europe during the Holocene and late glacial were primarily caused by large-scale climate changes.