A 850-year record climate and vegetation changes in East Siberia (Russia), inferred from geochemical and biological proxies of lake sediments

East Siberia is very sensitive to moisture regimes because it is located in a margin area, where moisture from the North Atlantic is strongly depleted, and the penetration of the East Asian monsoon is weak and rare. In winter months, the Siberian anticyclone strongly blocks and reduces the external influences on the region. The high latitude of the study area at 52°N is probably sensitive to variation in insolation and solar activity. We analysed a 42-cm-long sediment record from Lake Mountain located in East Siberia (Russia) for geochemical, mineralogical, subfossil diatoms, chironomids, and pollen to provide a reconstruction of the climate history of the area for the last 850 years. According to our reconstruction, a clear decrease in summer temperatures occurred in East Siberia after ca. 1400 and we linked this temperature drop with the beginning of the Little Ice Age. The coldest summer occurred about ca. 1570–1700 and 1830–1900. We assumed that the most significant changes of the lake bio-productivity and the catchment area were occurred about ca. 1160–1350, 1350–1590, 1590–1730, 1730–1900 and 1940 to the present. The most dramatic period with unfavorable climate conditions for lake-biota was during 1590–1730.