scholarly journals Revisiting the andean tropical glacier behavior during the Antarctic cold reversal

2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 629 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Jomelli ◽  
L. Martin ◽  
P. H. Blard ◽  
V. Favier ◽  
M. Vuillé ◽  
...  

The sensitivity of tropical glaciers to paleoclimatic conditions that prevailed during the Antarctic cold reversal (ACR, ca. 14.5-12.9 ka) has been the subject of a wide debate. In 2014 a paper suggested that tropical glaciers responded very sensitively to the changing climate during the ACR (Jomelli et al., 2014). In this study, we reexamine the conclusions from this study by recalculating previous chronologies based on 226 10Be and 14 3He ages respectively, and using the most up-to date production rates for these cosmogenic nuclides in the Tropical Andes. 53 moraines from 25 glaciers were selected from the previous analysis provided by Jomelli et al. (2014) located in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. We then focused on two distinct calculations. First we considered the oldest moraine and its uncertainty for every glacier representing the preserved evidence of the maximum glacier extents during the last deglaciation period, and binned the results into 5 distinct periods encompassing the Antarctic cold reversal and Younger Dryas (YD) chronozones: pre-ACR, ACR, ACR-YD, YD and post-YD respectively. Results revealed a predominance of pre-ACR and ACR ages, accounting for 60% of the glaciers. Second we counted the number of moraines per glacier according to the different groups. 21 moraines (40%) of the selected glaciers belong to the pre-ACR-ACR chronozones while 3 moraines only (5%) were dated to the YD and YD-Holocene groups. The rest was assigned to the ACR-YD. These results suggest that moraine records are a very good proxy to document the ACR signal in the Tropical Andes.

2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 591 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Mark ◽  
N. Stansell ◽  
G. Zeballos

The tropical Andes of Peru and Bolivia are important for preserving geomorphic evidence of multiple glaciations, allowing for refinements of chronology to aid in understanding climate dynamics at a key location between hemispheres. This review focuses on the deglaciation from Late-Pleistocene maximum positions near the global Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). We synthesize the results of the most recent published glacial geologic studies from 12 mountain ranges or regions within Peru and Bolivia where glacial moraines and drift are dated with terrestrial cosmogenic nuclides (TCN), as well as maximum and minimum limiting ages based on radiocarbon in proximal sediments. Special consideration is given to document paleoglacier valley localities with topographic information given the strong vertical mass balance sensitivity of tropical glaciers. Specific valley localities show variable and heterogeneous sequences ages and extensions of paleoglaciers, but conform to a generally cogent regional sequence revealed by more continuous lake sedimentary records. There are clear distributions of stratigraphically older and younger moraine ages that we group and discuss chronologically. The timing of the local LGM based on average TCN ages of moraine groups is 25.1 ka, but there are large uncertainties (up to 7 ka) making the relative timing with the global LGM elusive. There are a significant number of post-LGM moraines that date to 18.9 (± 0.5) ka. During the Oldest Dryas (18.0 to 14.6 ka), moraine boulders date to 16.1 (± 1.1) ka, suggesting that glaciers either experienced stillstands or readvances during this interval. The Antarctic Cold Reversal (ACR; 14.6 to 12.6 ka) is another phase of stillstanding or readvancing glaciers with moraine groups dating to 13.7 (± 0.8) ka, followed by retreating ice margins through most of the Younger Dryas (YD; 12.9 to 11.8 ka). During the early Holocene, groups of moraines in multiple valleys date to 11.0 (± 0.4) ka, marking a period when glaciers either readvanced or paused from the overall trend of deglaciation. The pattern of glacial variability during the Late Glacial after ~14.6 ka appears to be more synchronous with periods of cooling in the southern high latitudes, and out-of-phase with the overall deglacial trend in the Northern Hemisphere. While insolation and CO2 forcing likely drove the general pattern of deglaciation in the southern tropical Andes, regional ocean-atmospheric and hypsometric controls must have contributed to the full pattern of glacial variability.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Léo Martin ◽  
Pierre-Henri Blard ◽  
Jérôme Lavé ◽  
Vincent Jomelli ◽  
Maarten Lupker ◽  
...  

<p>The climatic reorganizations that occurred in the Southern and Northern hemispheres during the last deglaciation are thought to have affected the continental tropical regions. However, the respective impact of North and Southern climatic changes in the Tropics are still poorly understood. In the Norhtern Tropical Andes, moraines records indicate that the Antarctic Cold Reversal (ACR, 14.3-12.9 ka BP) stage was more represented than the Younger Dryas (12.9-11.7 ka BP) (Jomelli et al., 2014). However, further South, in the Altiplano basin (Bolivia), two cold periods of the North Hemisphere (Heinrich Stadial 1a (16.5-14.5 ka) and Younger Dryas) are synchronous with (i) major advances or stillstands of paleo-glaciers and with (ii) the highstands of the giant palaeo-lakes Tauca and Coipasa (Martin et al., 2018). Therefore, additional geochronological records of paleoglaciers fluctuations are necessary to address the respective impacts of North and South Hemisphere on the glacial dynamics in the region.</p><p>We present new Cosmic Ray Exposure (CRE) ages from glacial landforms of the Bolivian Andes that extend pre-existing datasets for four different sites spreading from 16 to 21°S. We reconstruct the Equilibrium Line Altitudes (ELA) associated with each moraine with the AAR method and use them in an inverse algorithm that combines both the palaeo-glaciers and palaeo-lake budgets to derive temperature and precipitation reconstructions. Our temperature reconstruction (ΔT vs. Present) shows a consistent trend through the four glacial sites with a progressive warming from ΔT= -5°C (17 ka BP) to –2.5°C (15-14.5 ka BP, at the end of the Tauca highstand). This is followed by a return to colder conditions, around -4°C, during the ACR (15.5-12.9 ka BP). The Coipasa highstand is coeval with another warming trend followed by ΔT stabilization at the onset of the Holocene (circa 10 ka BP), around -3°C. Precipitation is mainly characterized by increases during the lake highstands, modulated by the distance from the glacial sites to the center of the paleolakes that are moisture sources (recycling processes).</p><p>These new results highlight the decorrelation of the glacier dynamics to the temperature signal in regions that are characterized by high precipitation variability. They also provide a theoretical frame to explain how both regional and global forcings can imprint the paleo-glacial records. Our results strongly suggest that during the last deglaciation (20 – 10 ka BP), in the Tropical Andes, atmospheric temperatures follow the Antarctic variability, while precipitation is driven by the changes occurring in the Northern Hemisphere.</p><p>References</p><p>Jomelli et al., Nature, 2014; Martin et al., Sc. Advances, 2018</p>


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Léo Martin ◽  
Pierre-Henri Blard ◽  
Jérôme Lavé ◽  
Maarten Lupcker ◽  
Julien Charreau ◽  
...  

<p>The paleoclimatic changes that occurred in the Southern and Northern hemispheres during the last deglaciation are thought to have affected the continental tropical regions. However, the respective impact of North and Southern climatic changes in the tropics are still poorly understood. In the High Tropical Andes, the Antarctic Cold Reversal (ACR, 14.3-12.9 ka BP) was reported to be more represented than the Younger Dryas (12.9-11.7 ka BP) among morainic records. However, in the Altiplano basin (Bolivia), two cold periods of the North Hemisphere (Heinrich Stadial 1a (16.5-14.5 ka) and Younger Dryas) are synchronous with (i) major advances or stillstands of paleo-glaciers and with (ii) the highstands of the giant palaeo-lakes Tauca and Coipasa. Therefore, additional results are needed to disentangle between potential North and South Hemisphere climatic influence on the glacial dynamics in the region.</p><p>We present new Cosmic Ray Exposure (CRE) ages from glacial landforms of the Bolivian Andes that extend pre-existing datasets for four different sites spreading from 16 to 21°S. We reconstruct the Equilibrium Line Altitudes (ELA) associated with each moraine with the AAR method and use them in an inverse algorithm that combines both the palaeo-glaciers and palaeo-lake budgets to derive temperature and precipitation reconstructions. Our temperature reconstruction (ΔT vs. Present) shows a consistent trend through the four glacial sites with a progressive warming from ΔT= -5°C (17 ka BP) to –2.5°C (15-14.5 ka BP, at the end of the Tauca highstand). This is followed by a return to colder conditions, around -4°C, during the ACR (15.5-12.9 ka BP). The Coipasa highstand is coeval with another warming trend followed by ΔT stabilization at the onset of the Holocene (circa 10 ka BP), around -3°C. Precipitation is mainly characterized by increases during the lake highstands, modulated by the distance from the glacial sites to the center of the paleolakes that are moisture sources (recycling processes).</p><p>These new results highlight the decorrelation of the glacier dynamics to the temperature signal in regions that are characterized by high precipitation variability. They also provide a theoretical frame to explain how both regional and global forcings can imprint the paleo-glacial records. Our results strongly suggest that during the last deglaciation (20 – 10 ka BP), in the Tropical Andes, atmospheric temperatures follow the Antarctic variability, while precipitation is driven by the changes occurring in the Northern Hemisphere.</p>


2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 671-683 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. B. Pedro ◽  
T. D. van Ommen ◽  
S. O. Rasmussen ◽  
V. I. Morgan ◽  
J. Chappellaz ◽  
...  

Abstract. Precise information on the relative timing of north-south climate variations is a key to resolving questions concerning the mechanisms that force and couple climate changes between the hemispheres. We present a new composite record made from five well-resolved Antarctic ice core records that robustly represents the timing of regional Antarctic climate change during the last deglaciation. Using fast variations in global methane gas concentrations as time markers, the Antarctic composite is directly compared to Greenland ice core records, allowing a detailed mapping of the inter-hemispheric sequence of climate changes. Consistent with prior studies the synchronized records show that warming (and cooling) trends in Antarctica closely match cold (and warm) periods in Greenland on millennial timescales. For the first time, we also identify a sub-millennial component to the inter-hemispheric coupling. Within the Antarctic Cold Reversal the strongest Antarctic cooling occurs during the pronounced northern warmth of the Bølling. Warming then resumes in Antarctica, potentially as early as the Intra-Allerød Cold Period, but with dating uncertainty that could place it as late as the onset of the Younger Dryas stadial. There is little-to-no time lag between climate transitions in Greenland and opposing changes in Antarctica. Our results lend support to fast acting inter-hemispheric coupling mechanisms, including recently proposed bipolar atmospheric teleconnections and/or rapid bipolar ocean teleconnections.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathaelle Bouttes ◽  
Didier Roche ◽  
Fanny Lhardy ◽  
Aurelien Quiquet ◽  
Didier Paillard ◽  
...  

<p>The last deglaciation is a time of large climate transition from a cold Last Glacial Maximum at 21,000 years BP with extensive ice sheets, to the warmer Holocene 9,000 years BP onwards with reduced ice sheets. Despite more and more proxy data documenting this transition, the evolution of climate is not fully understood and difficult to simulate. The PMIP4 protocol (Ivanovic et al., 2016) has indicated which boundary conditions to use in model simulations during this transition. The common boundary conditions should enable consistent multi model and model-data comparisons. While the greenhouse gas concentration evolution and orbital forcing are well known and easy to prescribe, the evolution of ice sheets is less well constrained and several choices can be made by modelling groups. First, two ice sheet reconstructions are available: ICE-6G (Peltier et al., 2015) and GLAC-1D (Tarasov et al., 2014). On top of topographic changes, it is left to modelling groups to decide whether to account for the associated bathymetry and land-sea mask changes, which is technically more demanding. These choices could potentially lead to differences in the climate evolution, making model comparisons more complicated.</p><p>We use the iLOVECLIM model of intermediate complexity (Goosse et al., 2010) to evaluate the impact of different ice sheet reconstructions and the effect of bathymetry changes on the global climate evolution during the Last deglaciation. We test the two ice sheet reconstructions (ICE-6G and GLAC-1D), and have implemented changes of bathymetry and land-sea mask. In addition, we also evaluate the impact of accounting for the Antarctic ice sheet evolution compared to the Northern ice sheets only.</p><p>We show that despite showing the same long-term changes, the two reconstructions lead to different evolutions. The bathymetry plays a role, although only few changes take place before ~14ka. Finally, the impact of the Antarctic ice sheet is important during the deglaciation and should not be neglected.</p><p>References</p><p>Goosse, H., et al., Description of the Earth system model of intermediate complexity LOVECLIM version 1.2, Geosci. Model Dev., 3, 603–633, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-3-603-2010, 2010</p><p>Ivanovic, R. F., et al., Transient climate simulations of the deglaciation 21–9 thousand years before present (version 1) – PMIP4 Core experiment design and boundary conditions, Geosci. Model Dev., 9, 2563–2587, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-2563-2016, 2016</p><p>Peltier, W. R., Argus, D. F., and Drummond, R., Space geodesy constrains ice age terminal deglaciation: The global ICE-6G_C (VM5a) model, J. Geophys. Res.-Sol. Ea., 120, 450–487, doi:10.1002/2014JB011176, 2015</p><p>Tarasov,L.,  et al., The global GLAC-1c deglaciation chronology, melwater pulse 1-a, and a question of missing ice, IGS Symposium on Contribution of Glaciers and Ice Sheets to Sea-Level Change, 2014</p>


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Léa Gest ◽  
Frédéric Parrenin ◽  
Jai Chowdhry Beeman ◽  
Dominique Raynaud ◽  
Tyler J. Fudge ◽  
...  

Abstract. To understand causal relationships in past climate variations, it is essential to have accurate chronologies of paleoclimate records. The last deglaciation, which occurred from 18 000 to 11 000 years ago, is especially interesting, since it is the most recent large climatic variation of global extent. Ice cores in Antarctica provide important paleoclimate proxies, such as regional temperature and global atmospheric CO2. However, temperature is recorded in the ice while CO2 is recorded in the enclosed air bubbles. The ages of the former and of the latter are different since air is trapped at 50–120 m below the surface. It is therefore necessary to correct for this air-ice shift to accurately infer the sequence of events. Here we accurately determine the phasing between East Antarctic temperature and atmospheric CO2 variations during the last deglacial warming based on Antarctic ice core records. We build a stack of East Antarctic temperature variations by averaging the records from 4 ice cores (EPICA Dome C, Dome Fuji, EPICA Dronning Maud Land and Talos Dome), all accurately synchronized by volcanic event matching. We place this stack onto the WAIS Divide WD2014 age scale by synchronizing EPICA Dome C and WAIS Divide using volcanic event matching, which allows comparison with the high resolution CO2 record from WAIS Divide. Since WAIS Divide is a high accumulation site, its air age scale, which has previously been determined by firn modeling, is more robust. Finally, we assess the CO2/Antarctic temperature phasing by determining four periods when their trends change abruptly. We find that at the onset of the last deglaciation and at the onset of the Antarctic Cold Reversal (ACR) period CO2 and Antarctic temperature are synchronous within a range of 210 years. Then CO2 slightly leads by 165 ± 116 years at the end of the Antarctic Cold Reversal (ACR) period. Finally, Antarctic temperature significantly leads by 406 ± 200 years at the onset of the Holocene period. Our results further support the hypothesis of no convective zone at EPICA Dome C during the last deglaciation and the use of nitrogen-15 to infer the height of the diffusive zone. Future climate and carbon cycle modeling works should take into account this robust phasing constraint.


Author(s):  
Ángel Rodés

Cosmogenic nuclides are widely used to constrain the landscape history of glaciated areas. At nunataks in continental polar regions with extremely arid conditions, cosmogenic nuclides are often the only method available to date the ice thinning history of the glacier. However, the amount of cosmogenic isotopes accumulated at the surface of nunataks depends not only on the length of time that rock has been exposed since the last deglaciation, but on the full history of the surface, including muon production under ice, exposure during previous interglacials, subaerial weathering rate, glacial erosion rate, and uplift rate of the nunatak. The NUNAtak Ice Thinning model (NUNAIT) simulates the cosmonuclide accumulation on vertical profiles, fitting the aforementioned parameters to a set of multi-isotope apparent ages from samples taken at different elevations over the ice-sheet surface. The NUNAIT calculator is an easy-to-use tool that constrains parameters that describe the geological history of a nunatak from a set of surface exposure ages.


2004 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 445-451 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristinamaria Salvi ◽  
Gianguido Salvi ◽  
Barbara Stenni ◽  
Antonio Brambati

AbstractA detailed study of organic carbon content obtained from two sediment cores collected in the Joides basin, western Ross Sea, Antarctica, was carried out. The variations observed during the last deglaciation and the Holocene were compared to the high-resolution climatic records (EPICA DC and Taylor Dome) preserved in the ice. The importance of the carbon content as a proxy for palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental changes was investigated. A dramatic decrease in the Ross Sea palaeoproductivity was observed during the Antarctic Cold Reversal (12.5–14 kyr BP). Another decrease in total organic carbon in the second half of the Holocene (after 5–6 kyr BP) confirms the climate worsening observed in previous studies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 247 ◽  
pp. 106542
Author(s):  
L.C.P. Martin ◽  
P.-H. Blard ◽  
J. Lavé ◽  
V. Jomelli ◽  
J. Charreau ◽  
...  

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