On the basis of synchronization of three carbon-14 (14C)-dated lacustrine sequences from Sweden with tree ring and ice core records, the absolute age of the Younger Dryas-Preboreal climatic shift was determined to be 11,450 to 11,390 +/- 80 years before the present. A 150-year-long cooling in the early Preboreal, associated with rising Delta14C values, is evident in all records and indicates an ocean ventilation change. This cooling is similar to earlier deglacial coolings, and box-model calculations suggest that they all may have been the result of increased freshwater forcing that inhibited the strength of the North Atlantic heat conveyor, although the Younger Dryas may have begun as an anomalous meltwater event.

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The termination of the Last Glaciation, the Lateglacial period, was characterised by highly unstable climates which, in northern Europe, oscillated between warm temperate and arctic conditions. Different indicators of past climate have provided contrasting views on the timing and intensity of these climatic changes.Here we present preliminary reconstructions of the thermal climate interpreted from subfossil coleopteran assemblages from Britain, Norway, Sweden and Poland, in which regional differences can be ascribed to the varying influence of, (a) the North Atlantic surface water temperatures, (b) the proximity of the Fennoscandian ice sheet and (c) the ice free continent. Quantification of the thermal climate enables these local differences to be resolved. Journal of Quaternary Science