The temperature evolution during the Holocene shows conflicting patterns and yields the controversy regarding whether the Holocene followed a warming or cooling trend. Resolving this controversy is critical for understanding the underlying mechanisms of climate change and evaluating global warming on a longer timescale. Here we present a quantitative summer temperature reconstruction based on branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers analyzed from a sedimentary sequence retrieved from the volcanic lake Kielguo crater lake in Northeast (NE) China. Our record revealed that the summer temperature in NE China followed a rough cooling trend during ~10–2.2 cal ka BP and increased after ~2.2 cal ka BP. The warmest period appeared at ~10–8.8 cal ka BP with ~15.8°C, and the coldest time occurred at ~2.3 cal ka BP with ~13.4°C. Compared with other temperature records from NE China, we conclude that the summer and winter temperature change trends in NE China were probably controlled by the summer and winter insolation respectively, and the ice volume. The mean annual temperature changes in NE China resulted from the superposition of summer cooling and winter warming during the Holocene, and the decrease in ice volume forcing the increase in mean annual temperatures before ~7–6 cal ka BP. The switch in mean annual temperature changes was probably linked with the collapse of Northern Hemisphere ice sheets.
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