Variable responses of western US glaciers during the last deglaciation

• Main Authors: Licciardi, J. M., Clark, P. U., Brook, E. J., Elmore, D., Sharma, P.
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Purdue University 2004
• Subjects: cosmogenic elements; exposure age; paleoclimatology; pinedale glaciation; wallowa mountains; atlantic heinrich events; cordilleran ice-sheet; younger-dryas; north-america; late pleistocene; sierra-nevada; cirque glaciation; british-columbia; late quaternary; united-states; Ice Sheet; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/physics_articles/399; https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/context/physics_articles/article/1918/type/native/viewcontent/.html

Cosmogenic Be-10 exposure ages from moraines in the Wallowa Mountains, Oregon, identify two maximal late Pleistocene glaciations at 21.1 +/- 0.4 ka and 17.0 +/- 0.3 ka and a minor glacial event at 10.2 +/- 0.6 ka. Our new high-resolution chronology, integrated with other well-dated glacial records from the western United States, demonstrates substantial differences in the synoptic responses of western U.S. glaciers to climate forcing associated with the global Last Glacial Maximum and subsequent millennial-scale events originating in the North Atlantic region. These variable synoptic glacier responses identify large changes in the relative contributions of regional to global controls on the climate of the western United States that accompanied the deglaciation.