Holocene Glacier Fluctuations in the Peruvian Andes Indicate Northern Climate Linkages

• Published in: Science
• Main Authors: Licciardi, Joseph M., Schaefer, Joerg M., Taggart, Jean R., Lund, David C.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 2009
• Subjects: North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1175010; https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.1175010

Togetherness Two of the most important questions in paleoclimatology are, how are the climates of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres linked, and what are the roles of the high latitudes and the tropics in driving and transmitting climate changes? Past investigations have concentrated on the study of large, rapid climate changes like deglaciations or the Younger Dryas because they are the easiest ones to see and to date. Licciardi et al. (p. 1677 ) expand the scope of these investigations by determining precise cosmogenic isotope ages for glacial moraines formed in the Peruvian Andes during the Holocene (the last 11,000 years). The precision of these data reveals a broad correlation between Peruvian glacial advances and climate in the North Atlantic region, revealing important climate linkages between the tropics and higher latitudes.