Unstable Little Ice Age climate revealed by high-resolution proxy records from northwestern China

The Late Holocene was characterized by several centennial-scale climate oscillations including the Roman Warm Period, the Dark Ages Cold Period, the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. The detection and investigation of such climate anomalies requires paleoclimate archives with an accurate chronology as well as a high temporal resolution. Here, we present 230Th/U-dated high-resolution multi-proxy records (δ13C, δ18O and trace elements) for the last 2500 years of four speleothems from Bunker Cave and the Herbstlabyrinth cave system in Germany. The multi-proxy data of all four speleothems show evidence of two warm and two cold phases during the last 2500 years, which coincide with the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period, as well as the Dark Ages Cold Period and the Little Ice Age, respectively. During these four cold and warm periods, the δ18O and δ13C records of all four speleothems and the Mg concentration of the speleothems Bu4 (Bunker Cave) and TV1 (Herbstlabyrinth cave system) show common features and are thus interpreted to be related to past climate variability. Comparison with other paleoclimate records suggests a strong influence of the North Atlantic Oscillation at the two caves sites, which is reflected by warm and humid conditions during the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period, and cold and dry climate during the Dark Ages Cold period and the Little Ice Age. The Mg records of speleothems Bu1 (Bunker Cave) and NG01 (Herbstlabyrinth) as well as the inconsistent patterns of Sr, Ba and P suggests that the processes controlling the abundance of these trace elements are dominated by site-specific effects rather than being related to supra-regional climate variability.

Download Full-text

Ice-Core Pollen Record of Climatic Changes in the Central Andes during the last 400 yr

Quaternary Research ◽

10.1016/j.yqres.2005.06.001 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 64 (2) ◽

pp. 272-278 ◽

Cited By ~ 59

Author(s):

Kam-biu Liu ◽

Carl A. Reese ◽

Lonnie G. Thompson

Keyword(s):

Little Ice Age ◽

Ice Core ◽

Climatic Changes ◽

Ice Age ◽

Striking Similarity ◽

Pollen Record ◽

Dry Period ◽

Proxy Records ◽

Ice Cap ◽

Ice Accumulation

AbstractThis paper presents a high-resolution ice-core pollen record from the Sajama Ice Cap, Bolivia, that spans the last 400 yr. The pollen record corroborates the oxygen isotopic and ice accumulation records from the Quelccaya Ice Cap and supports the scenario that the Little Ice Age (LIA) consisted of two distinct phases�"a wet period from AD 1500 to 1700, and a dry period from AD 1700 to 1880. During the dry period xerophytic shrubs expanded to replace puna grasses on the Altiplano, as suggested by a dramatic drop in the Poaceae/Asteraceae (P/A) pollen ratio. The environment around Sajama was probably similar to the desert-like shrublands of the Southern Bolivian Highlands and western Andean slopes today. The striking similarity between the Sajama and Quelccaya proxy records suggests that climatic changes during the Little Ice Age occurred synchronously across the Altiplano.

Download Full-text

High‐resolution proglacial lake records of pre‐Little Ice Age glacier advance, northeast Greenland

Boreas ◽

10.1111/bor.12361 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 48 (3) ◽

pp. 535-550 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Kathryn Adamson ◽

Timothy Lane ◽

Matthew Carney ◽

Thomas Bishop ◽

Cathy Delaney

Keyword(s):

High Resolution ◽

Little Ice Age ◽

Ice Age ◽

Proglacial Lake ◽

Glacier Advance

Download Full-text

Estimating the longevity of glaciers in the Xinjiang region of the Tian Shan through observations of glacier area change since the Little Ice Age using high-resolution imagery

Journal of Glaciology ◽

10.1017/jog.2020.24 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 66 (257) ◽

pp. 471-484

Author(s):

Julia Liu ◽

Daniel E. Lawson ◽

Robert L. Hawley ◽

Jonathan Chipman ◽

Brian Tracy ◽

...

Keyword(s):

High Resolution ◽

Little Ice Age ◽

Ice Age ◽

Glacier Area ◽

Glacier Surface ◽

Relative Loss ◽

High Resolution Imagery ◽

High Resolution Satellite Imagery ◽

Kaidu River ◽

Tian Shan

AbstractGlacial retreat in response to warming climates in the arid Xinjiang region of northwestern China directly impacts downstream water resources available for local communities. We used high-resolution satellite imagery from 1969 to 2014 to delineate spatial changes in 54 active glaciers in the upper Kaidu River Basin in the Tian Shan as well as their past expanses during the Little Ice Age (LIA). We manually delineated their boundaries based on the interpretation of glacial, geomorphic and topographic features. From the total glacier surface area, we estimated glacier volume and mass. From 1969 to 2014, glacier area decreased by 10.1 ± 1.0 km2 (relative loss of 34.2 ± 3.5%) and mass by 1.025 ± 0.108 Gt (relative loss of 43 ± 4.6%). From the LIA maximum (est. 1586 CE) to 1969, relative losses were less (25.7 ± 4.3% area loss and 33.1 ± 5.7% mass loss). Our results indicate that glacier recession is accelerating over time and that the glaciers are currently losing over 1.5 times more relative area than elsewhere in the Tian Shan. Using linear and non-linear projections, we estimate that these glaciers may disappear between 2050 and 2150 CE if climatic warming continues at the same pace.

Download Full-text

Climate and social change at the start of the Late Antique Little Ice Age

The Holocene ◽

10.1177/0959683620941079 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 30 (11) ◽

pp. 1643-1648 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Peter N Peregrine

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

High Resolution ◽

Little Ice Age ◽

Historical Data ◽

Ice Age ◽

Late Antique ◽

Social Disruption ◽

Epidemic Disease ◽

Vulnerability To Climate Change ◽

The Relationship

The Late Antique Little Ice Age, spanning the period from 536 CE to roughly 560 CE, saw temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere drop by a degree C in less than a decade. This rapid cooling is thought to have caused widespread famine, epidemic disease, and social disruption. The relationship between cooling and social disruption is examined here using a set of high-resolution climate and historical data. A significant link between cooling and social disruption is demonstrated, but it is also demonstrated that the link is highly variable, with some societies experiencing dramatic cooling changing very little, and others experiencing only slight cooling changing dramatically. This points to variation in vulnerability, and serves to establish the Late Antique Little Ice Age as a context within which naturalistic quasi-experiments on vulnerability to climate change might be conducted.

Download Full-text

Distribución espacial y temporal de glaciares, glaciares cubiertos y glaciares rocosos durante la última deglaciación en el valle de La Bonaigua (Pirineo Central)

Cuadernos de Investigación Geográfica ◽

10.18172/cig.4395 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 46 (2) ◽

pp. 413-446

Author(s):

J. Ventura-Roca

Keyword(s):

High Resolution ◽

Little Ice Age ◽

Ice Age ◽

Lidar Data ◽

Forest Environment ◽

Digital Elevation ◽

Rock Glaciers ◽

Elevation Model ◽

Glacial Landforms ◽

Central Pyrenees

The application of the paleogeographic method to the study of glacial landforms and rock glaciers allows their morphometric and sedimentological characterization, the establishment of a detailed morphostratigraphic sequence and a chronological proposal for the identified glacial phases. This study analyzes 86 landforms (57 glacial deposits, 21 rock glaciers and 8 protalus ramparts) in the Bonaigua Valley (Noguera Pallaresa Basin, Central Pyrenees), with special attention to the differentiation between debris-covered glaciers and rock glaciers. Other subjects studied concerning rock glaciers are: distinguish its glacial or periglacial origin; the possible current activity of some landforms, and the detection of rock glaciers located at low altitudes (in the current forest environment) through the use of high-resolution digital elevation model (2x2 m) from LIDAR data. The chronological hypothesis elaborated by correlation with other high Pyrenean valleys (with absolute ages available) includes 7 phases (6 glacial phases and 1 periglacial phase) in which co-exist and/or evolve, in a paraglacial dynamic, glaciers, debris-covered glaciers and rock glaciers, and that we temporarily place between the end of the Oldest Dryas and the Little Ice Age.

Download Full-text

Impact of the Little Ice Age cooling and 20th century climate change on peatland vegetation dynamics in central and northern Alberta using a multi-proxy approach and high-resolution peat chronologies

Quaternary Science Reviews ◽

10.1016/j.quascirev.2018.01.015 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 185 ◽

pp. 230-243 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

Author(s):

Gabriel Magnan ◽

Simon van Bellen ◽

Lauren Davies ◽

Duane Froese ◽

Michelle Garneau ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

High Resolution ◽

20Th Century ◽

Vegetation Dynamics ◽

Little Ice Age ◽

Ice Age ◽

Northern Alberta

Download Full-text

Was the Little Ice Age more or less El Niño-like than the Medieval Climate Anomaly? Evidence from hydrological and temperature proxy data

Climate of the Past ◽

10.5194/cp-13-267-2017 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 13 (3) ◽

pp. 267-301 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Lilo M. K. Henke ◽

F. Hugo Lambert ◽

Dan J. Charman

Keyword(s):

Little Ice Age ◽

Large Scale ◽

Global Climate ◽

Ice Age ◽

Medieval Climate Anomaly ◽

Climate Anomaly ◽

Proxy Data ◽

The Past ◽

Proxy Records

Abstract. The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the most important source of global climate variability on interannual timescales and has substantial environmental and socio-economic consequences. However, it is unclear how it interacts with large-scale climate states over longer (decadal to centennial) timescales. The instrumental ENSO record is too short for analysing long-term trends and variability and climate models are unable to accurately simulate past ENSO states. Proxy data are used to extend the record, but different proxy sources have produced dissimilar reconstructions of long-term ENSO-like climate change, with some evidence for a temperature–precipitation divergence in ENSO-like climate over the past millennium, in particular during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA; AD ∼  800–1300) and the Little Ice Age (LIA; AD ∼  1400–1850). This throws into question the stability of the modern ENSO system and its links to the global climate, which has implications for future projections. Here we use a new statistical approach using weighting based on empirical orthogonal function (EOF) to create two new large-scale reconstructions of ENSO-like climate change derived independently from precipitation proxies and temperature proxies. The method is developed and validated using model-derived pseudo-proxy experiments that address the effects of proxy dating error, resolution, and noise to improve uncertainty estimations. We find no evidence that temperature and precipitation disagree over the ENSO-like state over the past millennium, but neither do they agree strongly. There is no statistically significant difference between the MCA and the LIA in either reconstruction. However, the temperature reconstruction suffers from a lack of high-quality proxy records located in ENSO-sensitive regions, which limits its ability to capture the large-scale ENSO signal. Further expansion of the palaeo-database and improvements to instrumental, satellite, and model representations of ENSO are needed to fully resolve the discrepancies found among proxy records and establish the long-term stability of this important mode of climatic variability.

Download Full-text