Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Middle to late Holocene chironomid-inferred July temperatures for the central Northwest Territories, Canada

  • Original paper
  • Published:
Journal of Paleolimnology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

We analyzed subfossil chironomids, sediment organic matter and sediment particle size data from a 1.11-m-long freeze core collected from Carleton Lake (unofficial name), located approximately 120 km north of the modern treeline. This well-dated core spans the last ca. 6,500 years. Two chironomid transfer functions were applied to infer mean July air temperatures. Our results indicated that the chironomid-inferred temperatures from this lake sediment record did not pass a significance test, suggesting that other factors in addition to temperature may have been important in structuring the chironomid community through time. Although not statistically significant, the chironomid-inferred temperatures from this site do follow a familiar pattern, with highest inferred temperatures occurring during the Holocene Thermal Maximum (~6–4 cal kyr BP), followed by a long-term cooling trend, which is reversed during the last 600 years. The largest change in the chironomid assemblage, which occurred between ca. 4,600 and 3,900 cal yr BP is possibly related to the well-documented northward advance and subsequent retreat of treeline in this region.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (2005) Arctic climate impact assessment. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Barley E, Walker I, Kurek J, Cwynar L, Mathewes R, Gajewski K, Finney BP (2006) A northwest North American training set: distribution of freshwater midges in relation to air temperature and lake depth. J Paleolimnol 36:295–314

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blaauw M, Christen JA (2005) Radiocarbon peat chronologies and environmental change. J R Stat Soc Ser C (Appl Stat) 54:805–816

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blaauw M, Christen JA (2011) Flexible paleoclimate age-depth models using an autoregressive gamma process. Bayesian Anal 6:457–474

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blott SJ, Pye K (2001) Gradistat: a grain size distribution and statistics package for the analysis of unconsolidated sediments. Earth Surf Process Landforms 26:1237–1248

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brodersen KP, Quinlan R (2006) Midges as paleoindicators of lake productivity, eutrophication and hypolimnetic oxygen. Quat Sci Rev 25:1995–2012

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brooks SJ, Langdon PG, Heiri O (2007) The identification and use of Palaearctic Chironomidae larvae in palaeoecology. Quaternary Research Association, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Clegg BF, Clarke GH, Chipman ML, Chou M, Walker IR, Tinner W, Hu FS (2010) Six millennia of summer temperature variation based on midge analysis of lake sediments from Alaska. Quat Sci Rev 29:3308–3316

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Comiso JC (2003) Warming trends in the arctic from clear sky satellite observations. J Clim 16:3498–3510

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coulter Beckman (2003) LS 13 320 Laser diffraction particle size analyzer instrument manual. Beckman Coulter Inc., Miami

    Google Scholar 

  • Crann C (2013) Spatial and temporal variability of lake accumulation rates in Subarctic Northwest Territories, Canada. MSc thesis, Carleton University 72 pp

  • Davis W, Gariepy C, Breemen O (1996) Pb isotopic composition of late Archaean granites and the extent of recycling early Archaean crust in the Slave Province, northwest Canada. Chem Geol 130:255–269

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edwards TWD, Wolfe BB, MacDonald GM (1996) Influence of changing atmospheric circulation on precipitation δ18O–temperature relations in Canada during the holocene. Quat Res 46:211–218

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Environment Canada (2012) National climate data and information archive: Northwest Territories. http://climate.weatheroffice.gc.ca

  • Francis DR, Wolfe AP, Walker IR, Miller GH (2006) Interglacial and Holocene temperature reconstructions based on midge remains in sediments of two lakes from Baffin Island, Nunavut, Arctic Canada. Palaeogeogr Palaeoclimatol Palaeoecol 236:107–124

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Galloway JM, Macumber A, Patterson RT, Falck H, Hadlari T, Madsen E (2010) Paleoclimatological assessment of the Southern Northwest Territories and implications for the long-term viability of the Tibbitt to Contwoyto Winter Road, part 1: core collection. Northwest Territories Geoscience Office, Yellowknife

    Google Scholar 

  • Heiri O, Lotter AF (2001) Effect of low count sums on quantitative environmental reconstructions: an example using subfossil chironomids. J Paleolimnol 26:343–350

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heiri O, Lotter AF, Lemcke G (2001) Loss on ignition as a method for estimating organic and carbonate content in sediments; reproducibility and comparability of results. J Paleolimnol 25:101–110

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hu FS, Ito E, Brown TA, Curry BB, Engstrom DR (2001) Pronounced climatic variations in Alaska during the last two millennia. Proc Nat Acad Sci USA 98:10552–10556

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hu FS, Kaufman D, Yoneji S, Nelson D, Shemesh A, Huang Y, Tian J, Bond G, Clegg B, Brown T (2003) Cyclic variation and Solar forcing of Holocene climate in the Alaskan subarctic. Science 301:1890–1893

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hua Q, Barbetti M (2004) Review of tropospheric bomb 14C data for carbon cycle modeling and age calibration purposes. Radiocarbon 46:1273–1298

    Google Scholar 

  • Huang C, MacDonald GM, Cwynar LC (2004) Holocene landscape development and climate change in the Low Arctic, Northwest Territories, Canada. Palaeogeogr Palaeoclimatol Palaeoecol 205:221–234

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007) In: Pachauri RK, Reisinger A (eds) Climate change 2007: synthesis report. Contribution of working groups I, II and III to the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland, 104 pp

  • Irvine F, Cwynar LC, Vermaire JC, Rees ABH (2012) Midge-inferred temperature reconstructions and vegetation change over the last similar to 15,000 years from Trout Lake, northern Yukon Territory, central Beringia. J Paleolimnol 48:133–146

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Juggins S (2010) C2 version 1.6.7. Software for ecological and palaeoecological analysis and visualization. Department of Geography, University of Newcastle, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

    Google Scholar 

  • Juggins S (2012) rioja: analysis of quaternary science data, R package version 0.7-3. (http://cran.r-project.org/package=rioja)

  • Kaufman DS, Ager TA, Anderson NJ, Anderson PM, Andrews JT, Bartlein PJ et al (2004) Holocene thermal maximum in the western Arctic (0–180_W). Quat Sci Rev 23:529–560

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Krupnik I, Jolly D (eds) (2002) The Earth is faster now: indigenous observations of Arctic environmental change. Arctic Research Consortium of the United States, Fairbanks

    Google Scholar 

  • Kurek J, Cwynar LC, Vermaire JC (2009) A late Quaternary paleotemperature record from Hanging Lake, northern Yukon Territory, central Beringia. Quat Res 72:246–257

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Larocque I, Pienitz R, Roland N (2006) Factors influencing the distribution of chironomids in lakes distributed along a latitudinal gradient in northwestern Quebec, Canada. Can J Fish Aquat Sci 63:1286–1297

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Larocque-Tobler I, Grosjean M, Heiri O, Trachsel M (2009) High-resolution chironomid-inferred temperature history since AD 1580 from varved Lake Silvaplana, Switzerland: comparison with local and regional reconstructions. Holocene 19:1201–1212

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • MacDonald GM, Edwards TWD, Moser KA, Pienitz R, Smol JP (1993) Rapid response of treeline vegetation and lakes to past climate warming. Nature 361:243–246

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • MacDonald GM, Kremenetski KV, Beilman DW (2008) Climate change and the northern Russian treeline zone. Philos Trans R Soc Lon B Biol Sci 363:2285–2299

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • MacDonald GM, Porinchu DF, Rolland N, Kremenetsky KV, Kaufman DS (2009) Paleolimnological evidence of the response of the central Canadian treeline zone to radiative forcing and hemispheric patterns of temperature change over the past 2000 years. J Paleolimnol 41:129–141

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Macumber A, Patterson RT, Neville LA, Falck H (2011) A sledge microtome for high resolution subsampling of freeze cores. J Paleolimnol 45:307–310

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Macumber AL, Neville LA, Galloway JM, Patterson RT, Falck H, Swindles G, Crann C, Clark I, Gammon P, Madsen E (2012) Paleoclimatological assessment of the Northwest Territories and implications for the long-term viability of the Tibbitt to Contwoyto Winter Road, Part II: March 2012 Field Season Results. Northwest Territories Geoscience Office Open Report 2011-010

  • Mann ME, Zhang Z, Rutherford S, Bradley RS, Hughes MK, Shindell D, Ammann C, Faluvegi G, Ni F (2009) Global signatures and dynamical origins of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Climate Anomaly. Science 326:1256–1260

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Medeiros AS, Quinlan R (2011) The distribution of the Chironomidae (Insecta: Diptera) along multiple environmental gradients in lakes and ponds of the central Canadian Arctic. Can J Fish Aquat Sci 68:1511–1527

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Medeiros AS, Friel CE, Finkelstein SA, Quinlan R (2012) A high resolution multi-proxy record of pronounced recent environmental change at Baker Lake, Nunavut. J Paleolimnol 47:661–676

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moser KA, MacDonald GM (1990) Holocene vegetation change at treeline Northwest Territories, Canada. Quat Res 34:227–239

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Murray M (2002) Is laser particle size determination possible for carbonate-rich lake sediments? J Paleolimnol 27:173–183

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Natural Resources Canada (2009) The atlas of Canada: environment. http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca

  • Oksanen J, Blanchet FG, Kindt R, Legendre P, Minchin PR, O’Hara RB, Simpson GL, Solymos P, Stevens MHH, Wagner H (2012) vegan: community ecology package. R package version 2.0-4. http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=vegan

  • Pienitz R, Smol JP, MacDonald GM (1999) Paleolimnological reconstruction of Holocene climatic trends from two boreal treeline lakes, Northwest Territories, Canada. Arct Antarct Alp Res 31:82–93

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pisaric MFJ, St-Onge SM, Kokelj SV (2009) Tree-ring reconstruction of early-growing season precipitation from Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. Arct Antarct Alp Res 41:486–496

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Porinchu DF, MacDonald GM (2003) The use and application of freshwater midges (Chironomidae : Insecta : Diptera) in geographical research. Progr Phys Geogr 27:378–422

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Porinchu DF, Rolland N, Moser KA (2009) Development of a chironomid-based air temperature inference model for the central Canadian Arctic. J Paleolimnol 41:349–368

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Quinlan R, Smol JP (2001) Setting minimum head capsule abundance and taxa deletion criteria in chironomid-based inference models. J Paleolimnol 26:327–342

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Quinlan R, Paterson MJ, Smol JP (2012) Climate-mediated changes in small lakes inferred from midge assemblages: the influence of thermal regime and lake depth. J Paleolimnol 48:297–310

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • R Core Team (2012) R: a language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna

    Google Scholar 

  • Reimer PJ, Brown TJ, Reimer RW (2004) Discussion: reporting and calibration of post-bomb 14C data. Radiocarbon 46:1299–1304

    Google Scholar 

  • Reimer PJ, Baillie MGL, Bard E, Bayliss A, Beck JW, Blackwell PG et al (2009) IntCal09 and Marine09 radiocarbon age calibration curves, 0–50,000 years cal BP. Radiocarbon 51:1111–1150

    Google Scholar 

  • Reyes AV, Wiles GC, Smith DJ, Barclay DJ, Allen S, Jackson S, Larocque S, Laxton S, Lewis D, Calkin PE, Clague JJ (2006) Expansion of alpine glaciers in Pacific North America in the first millennium A.D. Geology 34:57–60

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rühland K, Smol JP (2005) Diatom shifts as evidence for recent Subarctic warming in a remote tundra lake, NT, Canada. Palaeogeogr Palaeoclimatol Palaeoecol 226:1–16

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rühland K, Priesnitz A, Smol JP (2003) Evidence for recent environmental changes in 50 lakes the across Canadian arctic treeline. Arct Antarct Alp Res 35:110–123

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simpson GL, Oksanen J (2009) Analogue: analogue matching and modern analogue technique transfer function models. (R package version 0.6-23)

  • Stephenson SR, Smith LC, Agnew JA (2011) Divergent long-term trajectories of human access to the Arctic. Nat Clim Chang 1:156–160

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stubley M (1990) Preliminary geology of the McCrea-Drybones Lakes area part of NTS 85 P/9,10. EGS Series 1990-4 Canada-NWT Mineral Development Agreement 1 map with Marginal notes

  • Stuiver M, Reimer PJ (1993) Extended 14C database and revised Calib 3.0 14C age calibration program. Radiocarbon 35:215–230

    Google Scholar 

  • Telford R.J. (2011) palaeoSig: significance tests of quantitative palaeoenvironmental reconstructions. R package version 1.0

  • Telford RJ, Birks HJ (2011) A novel method for assessing the statistical significance of quantitative reconstructions inferred from biotic assemblages. Quat Sci Rev 30:1272–1278

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ter Braak CFJ, Šmilauer P (2002) CANOCO reference manual and CANODRAW for windows user’s guide: software for canonical community ordination (v 4.5). Microcomputer Power, Ithaca

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomas EK, Briner JP, Axford Y, Francis DR, Miller GH, Walker IR (2011) A 2000-yr-long multi-proxy lacustrine record from central Baffin Island, Arctic Canada reveals first millennium AD cold period. Quat Res 75:491–500

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van Hengstum PJ, Reinhardt EG, Boyce JI, Clark C (2007) Changing sedimentation patterns due to historical land-use change in Frenchman’s Bay, Pickering, Canada: evidence from high-resolution textural analysis. J Paleolimnol 37:603–618

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walker IR (2001) Midges: Chironomidae and related Diptera. In: Smol JP, Birks HJB, Last WM (eds) Tracking environmental change using lake sediments. Zoological indicators, developments in paleoenvironmental researchs, vol 4. Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp 43–66

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Walker IR (2007) The WWW field guide to fossil midges. http://www.paleolab.ca/wwwguide/ last accessed July 2012

  • Walker IR, Cwynar LC (2006) Midges and palaeotemperature reconstruction—the North American experience. Quat Sci Rev 25:1911–1925

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walker IR, MacDonald GM (1995) Distributions of Chironomidae (Insecta: Diptera) and other freshwater midges with respect to tree line, Northwest Territories, Canada. Arct Alp Res 27:258–263

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

Helpful comments from two anonymous reviewers, the Editors, and Rod Smith with the Geological Survey of Canada greatly improved this manuscript. Funding for this collaborative research project was provided by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) strategic project grant and Discovery Grant to RTP, an NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award to LMU and a Fonds de recherche du Québec—Nature et technologies (FQRNT) Postdoctoral Fellowship to JCV. Direct and in-kind funding was provided by the Northwest Territories Geoscience Office, Polar Continental Shelf Project, The Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (by, in part, a Cumulative Impacts and Monitoring Program award to JMG), the Geological Survey of Canada, the Tibbitt to Contwoyto Winter Road Joint Venture (Erik Madsen and the crew of the Dome, Lockhart, and Lac de Gras maintenance camps), the North Slave Métis Alliance, and IMG Golder, Inuvik, and Golder Associates, Yellowknife. Special thanks to those involved in collection of the Carleton Lake sediment core including Robert Mercredi (North Slave Métis Alliance) and to Josh Kurek who assisted with chironomid identifications. This paper represents ESS contribution number 20120320.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Michael F. J. Pisaric

    Present address: Department of Geography, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, L2S 3A1, Canada

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6, Canada

    Lindsay M. Upiter, R. Timothy Patterson, Carley A. Crann, Andrew L. Macumber & Lisa A. Neville

  2. Department of Earth Sciences, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6, Canada

    Lindsay M. Upiter, R. Timothy Patterson, Carley A. Crann, Andrew L. Macumber & Lisa A. Neville

  3. Institute of Environmental Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6, Canada

    Jesse C. Vermaire

  4. Geological Survey of Canada Calgary, 3303-33rd Street NW, Calgary, AB, T2L 2A, Canada

    Jennifer M. Galloway

  5. School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK

    Graeme T. Swindles

  6. Northwest Territories Geoscience Office, P.O. Box 1500, Yellowknife, NT, X1A 2R3, Canada

    Hendrik Falck

  7. School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology, Queen’s University of Belfast, Belfast, BT7 1NN, UK

    Helen M. Roe

  8. Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6, Canada

    Jesse C. Vermaire & Michael F. J. Pisaric

Authors
  1. Lindsay M. Upiter
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jesse C. Vermaire
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. R. Timothy Patterson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Carley A. Crann
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Jennifer M. Galloway
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Andrew L. Macumber
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Lisa A. Neville
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Graeme T. Swindles
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Hendrik Falck
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  10. Helen M. Roe
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  11. Michael F. J. Pisaric
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jesse C. Vermaire.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Upiter, L.M., Vermaire, J.C., Patterson, R.T. et al. Middle to late Holocene chironomid-inferred July temperatures for the central Northwest Territories, Canada. J Paleolimnol 52, 11–26 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-014-9775-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-014-9775-5

Keywords

Search

Navigation