This project studies the climate development in polar areas during the last 400 years using the results of pollen analysis of soil samples collected in the Arctic regions, and written information collected in Dutch archives. Dutch sailors were sailing in Arctic waters already long before Willem Barentsz tried to find the northeast passage to China and India in the 1590s. They reported their observations to their principals and these reports are sometimes preserved. In this way written sources with much information about may aspects of the Atlantic Arctic are kept in reports in the Dutch archives. In these reports valuable information about the weather in the last 400 years is registered and also if serial these data can be interpreted as climate information. In combination with the information of the pollendiagrams of the collected soil samples, it will be possible to reconstruct the climate development in the Arctic in the last 400 years.
pollen analysis historical records