Little Ice Age climate reconstruction from ensemble reanalysis of Alpine glacier fluctuations

Abstract

Abstract. Mountain glaciers sample a combination of climate fields -temperature, precipitation and radiation -by accumulation and melting of ice. Flow dynamics acts as a transfer function that maps volume changes to a length response of the glacier terminus. Long histories of terminus positions have been assembled for several glaciers in the Alps. Here I analyze terminus position histories from an ensemble of seven glaciers in the Alps with a macroscopic model of glacier dynamics to derive a history of glacier equilibrium line altitude (ELA) for the time span 400-2010 C.E. The resulting climatic reconstruction depends only on records of glacier variations. The reconstructed ELA history is similar to recent reconstructions of Alpine summer temperature and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) index, but bears little resemblance to reconstructed precipitation variations. Most reconstructed low-ELA periods coincide with large explosive volcano eruptions, hinting at a direct effect of volcanic radiative cooling on mass balance. The glacier advances during the LIA, and the retreat after 1860, can thus be mainly attributed to temperature and volcanic radiative cooling.

Modelling the evolution of Vadret da Morteratsch, Switzerland, since the Little Ice Age and into the future

“…a -1 by 1930 to capture the In this paper we can only speculate about the reasons why a surface-mass-balance model driven by HISTALP data alone is not able to produce a correct glacier retreat. Apparently, the glacier's mass balance is affected by additional features not captured well in the ambient climate records, as noted earlier, for example in a study on Glacier d'Argentière, France (Huybrechts and others, 1989), and a recent study by Lüthi (2014). Possibly this is related to variations in aerosol content (Huss and others, 2009;Painter and others, 2013).…”

“…A subsequent decrease in accumulation should then have been responsible for the retreat from this maximum extent (Vincent and others, 2005), perhaps enhanced by a small increase in temperatures associated with a positive phase of the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) index between 1850 and 1870 (Huss and others, 2010a). Other recurrent hypotheses link the 19th-century glacier maximum to volcanic eruptions and aerosol forcing (Crowley, 2000); Goosse and others, 2006;Painter and others, 2013;Lüthi, 2014).…”

A Review on the Little Ice Age and Factors to Glacier Changes in the Tian Shan, Central Asia

“…It should also be noted that even for glaciers located higher than 3795 m, high glacier retreat (67.816%, node 27) is observed. This node represents the glaciers in KL region with an area smaller than 2.356 km 2 , slope greater than 24.96° and elevation lower than 3884 m. The random forest model is also able to pick up at three split conditions (node 3, 13,26) where the branches with KL region all show greater glacier changes than the other group, although the glaciers in this region show an overall smaller retreat.…”

“…Although the observational record is less available outside of the North Atlantic region, it is well studied that mountain glaciers advanced far beyond their modern limits in highlands of Asia, the Andes of South America, New Zealand, western North America and other ranges, e.g. [12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. Grove's book [2] provides a summary of the LIA-type events from all major regions over the world.…”

Glaciers Amount and Extent Change in the Dolra River Basin in 1911-1960-2014 Years, Caucasus Mountains, Georgia, Observed with Old Topographical Maps and Landsat Satellite Imagery

“…Moreover, glaciers respond to changes in climate, translating the climatic signal into clearly observable changes in the landscape. Quantitative information on glacier fluctuations over previous centuries therefore provides long-term context for recently observed climatic changes of the last several decades [3]- [5]. Measurements of glacier fluctuations can also be used to estimate the glacier contribution to sea-level rise [6]- [8], and to assess the effect of glacier changes on mountain hydrology and fresh water availability [9]- [12].…”