Subatlantic
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Holocene Epoch |
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The Subatlantic is the current climatic age of the Holocene epoch. It started at about 2,500 years BP and is still ongoing. Its average temperatures were slightly lower than during the preceding Subboreal and Atlantic. During its course the temperature underwent several oscillations which had a strong influence on fauna and flora and thus indirectly on the evolution of human civilizations. With intensifying industrialisation, human society started to stress the natural climatic cycles with increased greenhouse gas emissions.
The term subatlantic was first introduced in 1889 by Rutger Sernander to differentiate it from Axel Blytt's atlantic. It follows upon the previous subboreal. According to Franz Firbas (1949) and Litt et al. (2001) it consists of the pollen zones IX and X. This corresponds in the scheme of Fritz Theodor Overbeck to the pollen zones XI and XII.
In climate stratigraphy the subatlantic is usually subdivided into an older subatlantic and a younger subatlantic. The older subatlantic corresponds to pollen zone IX (or XI) characterized in central and northern Europe by beech or oak-beech forests, the younger subatlantic to pollen zone X (or XII).
In eastern Germany Dietrich Franke subdivides the subatlantic into four stages (from young to old):
The beginning of the subatlantic is usually defined as 2,400 calendar years BP or 450 BC. Yet this lower limit is by no means rigid. Some authors prefer to define the start of the subatlantic as 2,500 radiocarbon years which represents roughly 625 BC. Occasionally the onset of the subatlantic has even been pushed back as far as 1200 BC.
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