Late-Holocene temperature and precipitation changes in Vindelfjällen, mid-western Swedish Lapland, inferred from chironomid and geochemical data

In this article, we present results from a palaeolimnological study from Lake Vuoksjavratje in the mountain tundra region in the Vindelfjallen Mountains, northwest Sweden. We suggest that the influence of precipitation may be one of the factors causing discrepancies between chironomid-based late-Holocene July temperature (JulyT) reconstructions from Fennoscandia. We combine quantitative temperature reconstruction using chironomids for the last 5100 years with qualitative analysis of chironomid composition and geochemical analyses, such as x-ray fluorescence (XRF), total organic carbon (TOC) and C/N analysis. The studied sequence is dated by 210Pb, 137Cs and 11 14C datings from terrestrial macrofossils. The aim of the study was to use chironomids to reconstruct late-Holocene summer temperature variation on a multi-centennial to centennial timescale and to use geochemical data to identify periods during which the changes in chironomid composition might have been forced by environmental variables other than ...