Holocene Climatic Variations—Their Pattern and Possible Cause

• Published in: Quaternary Research
• Main Authors: Denton, George H., Karlén, Wibjörn
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1973
• Subjects: glacier; glaciers; Alaska; Lapland; Yukon
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0033-5894(73)90040-9; http://api.elsevier.com/content/article/PII:0033589473900409?httpAccept=text/xml; http://api.elsevier.com/content/article/PII:0033589473900409?httpAccept=text/plain; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0033589400035870

Abstract In the northeastern St. Elias Mountains in southern Yukon Territory and Alaska, C 14 -dated fluctuations of 14 glacier termini show two major intervals of Holocene glacier expansion, the older dating from 3300-2400 calendar yr BP and the younger corresponding to the Little Ice Age of the last several centuries. Both were about equivalent in magnitude. In addition, a less-extensive and short-lived advance occurred about 1250-1050 calendar yr BP (A.D. 700–900). Conversely, glacier recession, commonly accompanied by rise in altitude of spruce tree line, occurred 5975–6175, 4030-3300, 2400-1250, and 1050-460 calendar yr BP, and from A.D. 1920 to the present. Examination of worldwide Holocene glacier fluctuations reinforces this scheme and points to a third major interval of glacier advances about 5800-4900 calendar yrs BP; this interval generally was less intense than the two younger major intervals. Finally, detailed mapping and dating of Holocene moraines fronting 40 glaciers in the Kebnekaise and Sarek Mountains in Swedish Lapland reveals again that the Holocene was punctuated by repeated intervals of glacier expansion that correspond to those found in the St. Elias Mountains and elsewhere. The two youngest intervals, which occurred during the Little Ice Age and again about 2300–3000 calendar yrs BP, were approximately equal in intensity. Advances of the two older intervals, which occurred approximately 5000 and 8000 calendar yr BP, were generally less extensive. Minor glacier fluctuations were superimposed on all four broad expansion intervals; those of the Little Ice Age culminated about A.D. 1500–1640, 1710, 1780, 1850, 1890, and 1916. In the mountains of Swedish Lapland, Holocene mean summer temperature rarely, if ever, was lower than 1°C below the 1931–1960 summer mean and varied by less than 3.5°C over the last two broad intervals of Holocene glacial expansion and contraction. Viewed as a whole, therefore, the Holocene experienced alternating intervals of glacier expansion and contraction that ...