Quantification of Holocene Climates Around Greenland Using Pollen Records

A series of 12 pollen diagrams from all areas of coastal Greenland, as well as several from the adjacent Arctic Islands, can be used to document the spatial patterns of climate during the Holocene. We used a newly available modern pollen data set for calibration of the climate-pollen relation across the Arctic. Both the eastern and western sides of northern Greenland were relatively warm in the early Holocene, whereas southern Greenland had warmest conditions in the late Holocene. Temperature variations were on the order of a couple of degrees during the Holocene. Questions remain, due to the low density of available modern calibration data, relatively low temporal resolution of many of the records and issues in dating of the sediments.