AbstractThe glacial history of the Svalbard archipelago is often a hot topic for researches, but the articles usually refer to a particular piece of Svalbard. The authors of this work studied many scientific articles based on the researches to find and collect this history. Svalbard archipelago is located in the Arctic, at the edge of the continental shelf of Europe. The end of shelf boundary noted occurrence of ice caps in the past glaciations. In turn, the main elements of the landscape of the archipelago are glaciers that are currently in a recession. Spitsbergen (the biggest island of the archipelago) sets the limit of Pleistocene glaciations, and the current state of glaciers allows determining the place where the recession is intense. The main aim of the authors in this study is to show this history only from the late Vistulian to the late Holocene (the beginning of 21st century). Interstadials and Stadials start time varies, as their duration in different places, according to various authors. It is very hard to collect all information and describe this history. By knowing the history of glaciation, we can distinguish in the late Vistulian: Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), Bølling/Older Dryas/Allerød and Younger Dryas (YD). LGM was the stadial in which was the maximum extent of ice sheet in late Vistulian. After this period, ice sheet began to retreat from the continental shelf. In turn, YD was the stadial in which the last advance of glaciers took place, about 11 000 years BC. In the Holocene we can distinguish Holocene Climatic Optimum (in the meantime short Cooling Holocene), Revdalen Stadial, Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age (LIA) and 20th century warming. The maximum extent of glaciers in Holocene was in LIA. In LIA, the extent of glaciers was bigger than in YD. In 20th century a warming started and continues until now.
Maximum extent and dynamic behaviour of the last British–Irish Ice Sheet west of Ireland