Environmental and climate change in the southern Central Pyrenees since the Last Glacial Maximum: A view from the lake records

Abstract

In this contribution we compile and summarize the available paleo-environmental lacustrine data for the last 20,000 years from the southern Central Pyrenees (from west to east: El Portalet, Tramacastilla, Basa de la Mora, Estanya, Redon, Montcortès and Marcelino lakes) and present a new sequence from mid altitude (Holocene record of Lake Estanya). Multiproxy analyses of lake records have identified large vegetation and hydrological changes during last glacial, deglaciation and the Holocene periods at millennial, centennial and even decadal scales and documented their timing, intensity and varied nature. The review indicates that landscape dynamics in the Pyrenees have been greatly controlled by both long term and abrupt climate changes and, since the Middle Holocene, and particularly since Medieval times, by human activities as new transforming agent. Although high internal variability characterized every site, common temporal trends are evidenced, as well as a suggestive western–eastern gradient superimposed to the expected altitudinal one (highlands versus lowlands). Thus, the long-term Central Pyrenees environmental history presents a relatively high degree of internal coherence across space and provides some past scenarios of landscape-climate interactions to evaluate the expected impacts of current and future Global Change.