Lake sediment cores collected from four lakes (Upper Fly Lake 61.04°N, 138.09°W, 1326 m a.s.l.; Jenny Lake 61.04°N, 138.36°W, 817 m. a.s.l.; Donjek Kettle 61.69°N, 139.76°W, 732 m a.s.l.; Lake WP02 61.48°N, 139.97°W, 1463 m a.s.l.) in the southwest Yukon provide records of postglacial climatic variability in the region. A 13,000 year pollen record from Upper Fly Lake indicated that herbaceous tundra existed on the landscape from 13.6 to 11 ka, followed by birch shrub tundra until 10 ka, when Picea forests were established in the region. Pollen-, chironomid-, and ostracode-inferred paleoclimate reconstructions showed a long-term cooling with increasing moisture from the late glacial through the Holocene. The early and mid-Holocene were [...]
