The changing extent of marine-terminating glaciers and ice caps in northeastern Svalbard since the ‘Little Ice Age’ from marine-geophysical records
Climate warming in Svalbard since the end of the ‘Little Ice Age’ early in the 20th century has reduced glacier extent in the archipelago. Previous attempts to reconstruct ‘Little Ice Age’ glacier limits have encountered problems in specifying the area of tidewater glacier advances because it is dif...
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crsagepubl:10.1177/0959683619887429 2024-10-20T14:07:45+00:00 The changing extent of marine-terminating glaciers and ice caps in northeastern Svalbard since the ‘Little Ice Age’ from marine-geophysical records Dowdeswell, Julian A Ottesen, Dag Bellec, Valerie K natural environment research council 2019 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959683619887429 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0959683619887429 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full-xml/10.1177/0959683619887429 en eng SAGE Publications http://journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license The Holocene volume 30, issue 3, page 389-401 ISSN 0959-6836 1477-0911 journal-article 2019 crsagepubl https://doi.org/10.1177/0959683619887429 2024-10-08T04:09:12Z Climate warming in Svalbard since the end of the ‘Little Ice Age’ early in the 20th century has reduced glacier extent in the archipelago. Previous attempts to reconstruct ‘Little Ice Age’ glacier limits have encountered problems in specifying the area of tidewater glacier advances because it is difficult to estimate the past positions of their marine termini. Multibeam echo-sounding data are needed to map past glacier extent offshore, especially in open-marine settings where subaerial lateral moraines cannot be used due to the absence of fjord walls. We use the submarine glacial landform record to measure the recent limits of advance of over 30 marine-terminating northeastern Svalbard glaciers and ice caps. Our results demonstrate that previous work has underestimated the ice-covered area relative to today by about 40% for northeastern Svalbard (excluding southeast Austfonna) because marine-geophysical evidence in the form of submarine terminal moraines was not included. We show that the recent ice extent was 1753 km 2 larger than today over our full area of multibeam data coverage; about 5% of the total modern ice cover of Svalbard. It has often been assumed that moraine ridges located within a few kilometres of modern ice fronts in Svalbard represent either a ‘Little Ice Age’ maximum or relate to surge activity over the past century or so. In the marine environment of northeastern Svalbard, this timing can often be confirmed by reference to early historical maps and aerial photographs. Assemblages of submarine glacial landforms inshore of recently deposited terminal moraines suggest whether a recent advance may be a result of surging or ‘Little Ice Age’ climatic cooling relative to today. However, older terminal moraines do exist in the archipelago, as shown by radiocarbon and 10 Be dating of Holocene moraine ridges. Article in Journal/Newspaper Austfonna glacier Svalbard Tidewater SAGE Publications Austfonna ENVELOPE(24.559,24.559,79.835,79.835) Svalbard The Holocene 30 3 389 401 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
SAGE Publications |
op_collection_id |
crsagepubl |
language |
English |
description |
Climate warming in Svalbard since the end of the ‘Little Ice Age’ early in the 20th century has reduced glacier extent in the archipelago. Previous attempts to reconstruct ‘Little Ice Age’ glacier limits have encountered problems in specifying the area of tidewater glacier advances because it is difficult to estimate the past positions of their marine termini. Multibeam echo-sounding data are needed to map past glacier extent offshore, especially in open-marine settings where subaerial lateral moraines cannot be used due to the absence of fjord walls. We use the submarine glacial landform record to measure the recent limits of advance of over 30 marine-terminating northeastern Svalbard glaciers and ice caps. Our results demonstrate that previous work has underestimated the ice-covered area relative to today by about 40% for northeastern Svalbard (excluding southeast Austfonna) because marine-geophysical evidence in the form of submarine terminal moraines was not included. We show that the recent ice extent was 1753 km 2 larger than today over our full area of multibeam data coverage; about 5% of the total modern ice cover of Svalbard. It has often been assumed that moraine ridges located within a few kilometres of modern ice fronts in Svalbard represent either a ‘Little Ice Age’ maximum or relate to surge activity over the past century or so. In the marine environment of northeastern Svalbard, this timing can often be confirmed by reference to early historical maps and aerial photographs. Assemblages of submarine glacial landforms inshore of recently deposited terminal moraines suggest whether a recent advance may be a result of surging or ‘Little Ice Age’ climatic cooling relative to today. However, older terminal moraines do exist in the archipelago, as shown by radiocarbon and 10 Be dating of Holocene moraine ridges. |
author2 |
natural environment research council |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Dowdeswell, Julian A Ottesen, Dag Bellec, Valerie K |
spellingShingle |
Dowdeswell, Julian A Ottesen, Dag Bellec, Valerie K The changing extent of marine-terminating glaciers and ice caps in northeastern Svalbard since the ‘Little Ice Age’ from marine-geophysical records |
author_facet |
Dowdeswell, Julian A Ottesen, Dag Bellec, Valerie K |
author_sort |
Dowdeswell, Julian A |
title |
The changing extent of marine-terminating glaciers and ice caps in northeastern Svalbard since the ‘Little Ice Age’ from marine-geophysical records |
title_short |
The changing extent of marine-terminating glaciers and ice caps in northeastern Svalbard since the ‘Little Ice Age’ from marine-geophysical records |
title_full |
The changing extent of marine-terminating glaciers and ice caps in northeastern Svalbard since the ‘Little Ice Age’ from marine-geophysical records |
title_fullStr |
The changing extent of marine-terminating glaciers and ice caps in northeastern Svalbard since the ‘Little Ice Age’ from marine-geophysical records |
title_full_unstemmed |
The changing extent of marine-terminating glaciers and ice caps in northeastern Svalbard since the ‘Little Ice Age’ from marine-geophysical records |
title_sort |
changing extent of marine-terminating glaciers and ice caps in northeastern svalbard since the ‘little ice age’ from marine-geophysical records |
publisher |
SAGE Publications |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959683619887429 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0959683619887429 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full-xml/10.1177/0959683619887429 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(24.559,24.559,79.835,79.835) |
geographic |
Austfonna Svalbard |
geographic_facet |
Austfonna Svalbard |
genre |
Austfonna glacier Svalbard Tidewater |
genre_facet |
Austfonna glacier Svalbard Tidewater |
op_source |
The Holocene volume 30, issue 3, page 389-401 ISSN 0959-6836 1477-0911 |
op_rights |
http://journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0959683619887429 |
container_title |
The Holocene |
container_volume |
30 |
container_issue |
3 |
container_start_page |
389 |
op_container_end_page |
401 |
_version_ |
1813446706089426944 |