摘要
各类基于生态系统的气候替代数据一直用于评估北极过去的变化。虽然由于河流物质的持续性重新建构使流水生态系统的记录相对缺乏,但可通过高质量静水生态系统数据的组合,回溯到环北极地区的更新世末期和冰川消失时期。总之,可以部分地归因于冰川覆盖收缩效应的变化引起的全新世的气候变化,使北极的水文和淡水生态系统产生了重要的时空变化。特别值得注意的是,在长期的润湿时期,北部泥炭地得到了大规模扩展。较近期的湖泊生物区和沉积学数据揭示了在过去1～2个世纪期间出现的一般性气候变暖趋势,并且表明了淡水特征,譬如冰盖持续时间和热量层化的主要变化。这些数据为预测和量测气候变化对未来的影响提供了一个极好的依据基线。
Various types of ecosystem-based climate proxies have been used to assess past arctic change. Although lotic records are relatively poor because of the constant reworking of riverine material, high-quality lentic data have been assembled back to the end of the Pleistocene and deglaciation of the circumpolar Arctic. In general, climatic variations in the Holocene, partly due to changes in the shrinking effect of glacier coverage, produced significant temporal and spatial variations in arctic hydrology and freshwater ecosystems. Of particular note were the vast expansions of northern peatlands during major protracted periods of wetting. More recent lake biota and sedimentiological data reflect the general warming trend that has occurred over the last one to two centuries and indicate major changes to freshwater characteristics such as ice-cover duration and thermal stratification. Such data provide an excellent baseline against which future effects of climate change can be both projected and measured.
