Air-Pollution Effect and Paleotemperature Scale Versus delta super(13)C Records in Tree Rings and in a Peat Core (Southern Poland)

Carbon stable isotope analyses were performed on a vertical Sphagnum peat profile collected from a raised peat bog in the Karkonosze Mountains in southwestern Poland, and the isotope signature was determined in tree-ring cellulose from fragments of subfossil oak wood collected in southern Poland. Paleotemperature data reconstructed for the last millennium in the UK based on historical and biological data were then used to examine the role of air pollutants and natural environmental factors in the isotope signature. The delta super(13)C variations in peat and tree rings corresponded to the historical and biological record of climatic variations in Europe and to the rapid change of environmental conditions that occurred during the cold period. Temperature did not appear to the a single crucial factor controlling C3 plants, especially for shorter periods. Humidity was also important, and an impact of the Lenin steelworks in Nowa Huta that was constructed in 1954 was observed, which appeared to become a dominant factor controlling assimilation isotope fractionation after that time.