Significant climate anomalies have characterized the last 1000 yr in the Sierra Nevada, California, USA. Two warm, dry periods of 150-and 200-yr duration occurred during AD 900-1350, which were followed by anomalously cold climates, known as the Little Ice Age, that lasted from AD 1400 to 1900. Climate in the last century has been significantly warmer. Regional biotic and physical response to these climatic periods occurred. Climate variability presents challenges when interpreting historical variability, including the need to accommodate climate effects when comparing current ecosystems to historical conditions, especially if comparisons are done to evaluate causes (e.g., human impacts) of differences, or to develop models for restoration of current ecosystems. Many historical studies focus on ''presettlement'' periods, which usually fall within the Little Ice Age. Thus, it should be assumed that ecosystems inferred for these historical periods responded to different climates than those at present, and management implications should be adjusted accordingly. The warmer centuries before the Little Ice Age may be a more appropriate analogue to the present, although no historic period is likely to be better as a model than an understanding of what conditions would be at present without intervention. Understanding the climate context of historical reconstruction studies, and adjusting implications to the present, should strengthen the value of historical variability research to management.

Pollen from the upper 90 m of core OL-92 from Owens Lake is a climatically sensitive record of vegetation change that indicates shifts in the plant associations representing warm and cold desertscrub, pinyon–juniper woodland, and pine–fir forest during the past 180,000 years. These changes are synchronized with glacial–interglacial cycles. During glacial and stadial climates, juniper woodland expanded downslope and replaced warm desert shrubs while upper montane and subalpine forests in the arid Inyo Mountains also expanded, and those in the Sierra Nevada were displaced by the ice cap and periglacial conditions. Conversely, during interglacial and interstadial climates, warm desert plants expanded their range in the lowlands, juniper and sagebrush retreated upslope, and montane and subalpine forests expanded in the Sierra Nevada. The reconstructed vegetation history demonstrates a regional climatic response, and the congruence of the pollen sequence with marine and ice cap oxygen isotope stratigraphies suggests a link between regional vegetation and global climate change at orbital scales.

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