Definitions
Interstadials are regarded as the relatively short-lived periods of thermal improvement during a glacial phase, when temperatures did not reach those of the present day and, in lowland mid-latitude regions, the climax vegetation was boreal woodland (Lowe and Walker, 1997). Jessen and Milthers (1928) defined interstadials as periods that are either too short or too cold to allow the development of temperate deciduous forest of interglacial type in the same region. Interstadials are, however, not only defined on biostratigraphical grounds. In the USA, for instance, an interstadial is formally regarded as a climatic episode within a glaciation during which a secondary recession or standstill of glaciers took place (Gibbard and West, 2000).
Interstadials during the Weichselian
Many different interstadials are defined in Europe based on palynology. The interstadials that occurred during, for instance, the Weichselian Glacial have been named after the place where the interstadial...
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Hoek, W.Z. (2009). Interstadials. In: Gornitz, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Paleoclimatology and Ancient Environments. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4411-3_115
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