Glacier response to North Atlantic climate variability during the Holocene
Small glaciers and ice caps respond rapidly to climate variations, and records of their past extent provide information on the natural envelope of past climate variability. Millennial-scale trends in Holocene glacier size are well documented and correspond with changes in Northern Hemisphere summer...
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fttriple:oai:gotriple.eu:oai:doaj.org/article:b9abf4dc6d9243d58d6662cd2fa7ea20 2023-05-15T16:21:09+02:00 Glacier response to North Atlantic climate variability during the Holocene N. L. Balascio W. J. D'Andrea R. S. Bradley 2015-12-01 https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-11-1587-2015 http://www.clim-past.net/11/1587/2015/cp-11-1587-2015.pdf https://doaj.org/article/b9abf4dc6d9243d58d6662cd2fa7ea20 en eng Copernicus Publications 1814-9324 1814-9332 doi:10.5194/cp-11-1587-2015 http://www.clim-past.net/11/1587/2015/cp-11-1587-2015.pdf https://doaj.org/article/b9abf4dc6d9243d58d6662cd2fa7ea20 undefined Climate of the Past, Vol 11, Iss 12, Pp 1587-1598 (2015) geo envir Journal Article https://vocabularies.coar-repositories.org/resource_types/c_6501/ 2015 fttriple https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-11-1587-2015 2023-01-22T19:33:22Z Small glaciers and ice caps respond rapidly to climate variations, and records of their past extent provide information on the natural envelope of past climate variability. Millennial-scale trends in Holocene glacier size are well documented and correspond with changes in Northern Hemisphere summer insolation. However, there is only sparse and fragmentary evidence for higher-frequency variations in glacier size because in many Northern Hemisphere regions glacier advances of the past few hundred years were the most extensive and destroyed the geomorphic evidence of ice growth and retreat during the past several thousand years. Thus, most glacier records have been of limited use for investigating centennial-scale climate forcing and feedback mechanisms. Here we report a continuous record of glacier activity for the last 9.5 ka from southeast Greenland derived from high-resolution measurements on a proglacial lake sediment sequence. Physical and geochemical parameters show that the glaciers responded to previously documented Northern Hemisphere climatic excursions, including the "8.2 ka" cooling event, the Holocene Thermal Maximum, Neoglacial cooling, and 20th century warming. In addition, the sediments indicate centennial-scale oscillations in glacier size during the late Holocene. Beginning at 4.1 ka, a series of abrupt glacier advances occurred, each lasting ~100 years and followed by a period of retreat, that were superimposed on a gradual trend toward larger glacier size. Thus, while declining summer insolation caused long-term cooling and glacier expansion during the late Holocene, climate system dynamics resulted in repeated episodes of glacier expansion and retreat on multi-decadal to centennial timescales. These episodes coincided with ice rafting events in the North Atlantic Ocean and periods of regional ice cap expansion, which confirms their regional significance and indicates that considerable glacier activity on these timescales is a normal feature of the cryosphere. The data provide a longer-term ... Article in Journal/Newspaper glacier Greenland Ice cap North Atlantic Unknown Greenland Climate of the Past 11 12 1587 1598 |
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geo envir N. L. Balascio W. J. D'Andrea R. S. Bradley Glacier response to North Atlantic climate variability during the Holocene |
topic_facet |
geo envir |
description |
Small glaciers and ice caps respond rapidly to climate variations, and records of their past extent provide information on the natural envelope of past climate variability. Millennial-scale trends in Holocene glacier size are well documented and correspond with changes in Northern Hemisphere summer insolation. However, there is only sparse and fragmentary evidence for higher-frequency variations in glacier size because in many Northern Hemisphere regions glacier advances of the past few hundred years were the most extensive and destroyed the geomorphic evidence of ice growth and retreat during the past several thousand years. Thus, most glacier records have been of limited use for investigating centennial-scale climate forcing and feedback mechanisms. Here we report a continuous record of glacier activity for the last 9.5 ka from southeast Greenland derived from high-resolution measurements on a proglacial lake sediment sequence. Physical and geochemical parameters show that the glaciers responded to previously documented Northern Hemisphere climatic excursions, including the "8.2 ka" cooling event, the Holocene Thermal Maximum, Neoglacial cooling, and 20th century warming. In addition, the sediments indicate centennial-scale oscillations in glacier size during the late Holocene. Beginning at 4.1 ka, a series of abrupt glacier advances occurred, each lasting ~100 years and followed by a period of retreat, that were superimposed on a gradual trend toward larger glacier size. Thus, while declining summer insolation caused long-term cooling and glacier expansion during the late Holocene, climate system dynamics resulted in repeated episodes of glacier expansion and retreat on multi-decadal to centennial timescales. These episodes coincided with ice rafting events in the North Atlantic Ocean and periods of regional ice cap expansion, which confirms their regional significance and indicates that considerable glacier activity on these timescales is a normal feature of the cryosphere. The data provide a longer-term ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
N. L. Balascio W. J. D'Andrea R. S. Bradley |
author_facet |
N. L. Balascio W. J. D'Andrea R. S. Bradley |
author_sort |
N. L. Balascio |
title |
Glacier response to North Atlantic climate variability during the Holocene |
title_short |
Glacier response to North Atlantic climate variability during the Holocene |
title_full |
Glacier response to North Atlantic climate variability during the Holocene |
title_fullStr |
Glacier response to North Atlantic climate variability during the Holocene |
title_full_unstemmed |
Glacier response to North Atlantic climate variability during the Holocene |
title_sort |
glacier response to north atlantic climate variability during the holocene |
publisher |
Copernicus Publications |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-11-1587-2015 http://www.clim-past.net/11/1587/2015/cp-11-1587-2015.pdf https://doaj.org/article/b9abf4dc6d9243d58d6662cd2fa7ea20 |
geographic |
Greenland |
geographic_facet |
Greenland |
genre |
glacier Greenland Ice cap North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
glacier Greenland Ice cap North Atlantic |
op_source |
Climate of the Past, Vol 11, Iss 12, Pp 1587-1598 (2015) |
op_relation |
1814-9324 1814-9332 doi:10.5194/cp-11-1587-2015 http://www.clim-past.net/11/1587/2015/cp-11-1587-2015.pdf https://doaj.org/article/b9abf4dc6d9243d58d6662cd2fa7ea20 |
op_rights |
undefined |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-11-1587-2015 |
container_title |
Climate of the Past |
container_volume |
11 |
container_issue |
12 |
container_start_page |
1587 |
op_container_end_page |
1598 |
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