Climate, fire, farming and the recent vegetation history of subantarctic Campbell Island

2007 ◽  
Vol 98 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matt McGlone ◽  
Janet Wilmshurst ◽  
Colin Meurk
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level ◽  
Little Ice Age ◽  
Vegetation History ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Tundra Zone ◽  
Oceanic Climate ◽  
Tussock Grassland ◽  
History Of ◽  
Elevational Transect ◽  
Campbell Island

ABSTRACTCampbell Island is a small, uninhabited peat-covered island lying in the cool southern ocean 600 km south of the New Zealand mainland. Dracophyllum scrub is the main cover from sea level to 200 m, above which tussock grassland, macrophyllous forbs and tundra dominate. Seven peat profiles from sea level to the tundra zone provide an elevational transect for pollen and charcoal records spanning the last 500 years. Scrub density was relatively low between 200 and 400 cal yrs BP, possibly due to Little Ice Age cooling, but had recovered by the time Europeans discovered the island in AD 1810. Burning and grazing during a brief farming episode (AD 1895–1931) severely reduced scrub and palatable grasses and forbs. Vegetation recovery is now well advanced following cessation of farming and the later elimination of all feral grazing animals, cats and rats. Climates were cool in the southwest Pacific during the farming period, and since AD 1970 the island has warmed by c. 0·5°C. However, there has been no upwards movement of the scrubline despite vigorous regeneration of scrub at lower altitudes. The island's cloudy, highly oceanic climate appears to offset increasing summer warmth, and scrubline is likely to rise only if clearer and less windy, as well as warmer, summers eventuate.

Mangrove dynamics in the southwestern Caribbean since the ‘Little Ice Age’: A history of human and natural disturbances

The Holocene ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 849-861 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catalina González ◽  
Ligia Estela Urrego ◽  
José Ignacio Martínez ◽  
Jaime Polanía ◽  
Yusuke Yokoyama
Keyword(s):  
Little Ice Age ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Natural Disturbances ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mangrove Dynamics

scholarly journals Neoglacial history of Robson Glacier, British Columbia

2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (11) ◽  
pp. 1153-1164 ◽  
Author(s):  
B.H. Luckman ◽  
M.H. Masiokas ◽  
K. Nicolussi
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Little Ice Age ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Tree Line ◽  
Canadian Rockies ◽  
The Holocene ◽  
Forest Sites ◽  
History Of ◽  
Subfossil Wood ◽  
Glacier Advance

As glaciers in the Canadian Rockies recede, glacier forefields continue to yield subfossil wood from sites overridden by these glaciers during the Holocene. Robson Glacier in British Columbia formerly extended below tree line, and recession over the last century has progressively revealed a number of buried forest sites that are providing one of the more complete records of glacier history in the Canadian Rockies during the latter half of the Holocene. The glacier was advancing ca. 5.5 km upvalley of the Little Ice Age terminus ca. 5.26 cal ka BP, at sites ca. 2 km upvalley ca. 4.02 cal ka BP and ca. 3.55 cal ka BP, and 0.5–1 km upvalley between 1140 and 1350 A.D. There is also limited evidence based on detrital wood of an additional period of glacier advance ca. 3.24 cal ka BP. This record is more similar to glacier histories further west in British Columbia than elsewhere in the Rockies and provides the first evidence for a post-Hypsithermal glacier advance at ca. 5.26 cal ka BP in the Rockies. The utilization of the wiggle-matching approach using multiple 14C dates from sample locations determined by dendrochronological analyses enabled the recognition of 14C outliers and an increase in the precision and accuracy of the dating of glacier advances.

scholarly journals Lichenometry and Schmidt hammer tests in the Kaunertal glacier foreland (Ötztal Alps) during the AMADEE-15 Mars Mission Simulation

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 190-196
Author(s):  
Jan Czempiński ◽  
Maciej Dąbski
Keyword(s):  
Little Ice Age ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Schmidt Hammer ◽  
Mars Mission ◽  
Frontal Part ◽  
Glacier Foreland ◽  
Glacier Front ◽  
Relative Stabilization ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mission Simulation

AbstractThe aim of this article is to show the results of the lichenometrical and Schmidt hammer measurements performed in 2015 during the AMADEE-15 Mars Mission Simulation in the Ötztal Alps in order to test the capabilities of analogue astronauts and collect information on the geomorphic history of the study area since the Little Ice Age (LIA). The results obtained differ significantly from our expectations, which we attribute to differences in the field experience of participants and the astronauts’ technical limitations in terms of mobility. However, the experiments proved that these methods are within the range of the astronauts’ capabilities. Environmental factors, such as i) varied petrography, ii) varied number of thalli in test polygons, and iii) differences in topoclimatic conditions between the LIA moraine and the glacier front, further inhibited simple interpretation. The LIA maximum of the Kaunertal glacier occurred in AD 1850, and relative stabilization of the frontal part of the rock glacier occurred in AD 1711.

Caspian Sea-level changes at the end of Little Ice Age and its impacts on the avulsion of the Gorgan River : a multidisciplinary case study from the southeastern flank of the Caspian Sea

2014 ◽  
pp. 145-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdolmajid Naderi Beni ◽  
Hamid Lahijani ◽  
Morsen Pourkerman ◽  
Rahman Jokar ◽  
Muna Hosseindoust ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level ◽  
Caspian Sea ◽  
Little Ice Age ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Sea Level Changes ◽  
The Caspian Sea

scholarly journals Simulated retreat of Jakobshavn Isbræ since the Little Ice Age controlled by geometry

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 2249-2266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadine Steiger ◽  
Kerim H. Nisancioglu ◽  
Henning Åkesson ◽  
Basile de Fleurian ◽  
Faezeh M. Nick
Keyword(s):  
Little Ice Age ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Climate Forcing ◽  
Relative Role ◽  
Regional Warming ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Term Response

Abstract. Rapid retreat of Greenland's marine-terminating glaciers coincides with regional warming trends, which have broadly been used to explain these rapid changes. However, outlet glaciers within similar climate regimes experience widely contrasting retreat patterns, suggesting that the local fjord geometry could be an important additional factor. To assess the relative role of climate and fjord geometry, we use the retreat history of Jakobshavn Isbræ, West Greenland, since the Little Ice Age (LIA) maximum in 1850 as a baseline for the parameterization of a depth- and width-integrated ice flow model. The impact of fjord geometry is isolated by using a linearly increasing climate forcing since the LIA and testing a range of simplified geometries. We find that the total length of retreat is determined by external factors – such as hydrofracturing, submarine melt and buttressing by sea ice – whereas the retreat pattern is governed by the fjord geometry. Narrow and shallow areas provide pinning points and cause delayed but rapid retreat without additional climate warming, after decades of grounding line stability. We suggest that these geometric pinning points may be used to locate potential sites for moraine formation and to predict the long-term response of the glacier. As a consequence, to assess the impact of climate on the retreat history of a glacier, each system has to be analyzed with knowledge of its historic retreat and the local fjord geometry.

scholarly journals Late Little Ice Age palaeoenvironmental records from the Anzali and Amirkola Lagoons (south Caspian Sea): Vegetation and sea level changes

2011 ◽  
Vol 302 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 415-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.A.G. Leroy ◽  
H.A.K. Lahijani ◽  
M. Djamali ◽  
A. Naqinezhad ◽  
M.V. Moghadam ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level ◽  
Caspian Sea ◽  
Little Ice Age ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Sea Level Changes ◽  
And Sea Level

The Norse in Greenland and late Holocene sea-level change

Polar Record ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naja Mikkelsen ◽  
Antoon Kuijpers ◽  
Jette Arneborg
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level ◽  
Little Ice Age ◽  
Late Holocene ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Documentary Evidence ◽  
Sea Level Changes ◽  
Middle Holocene ◽  
Level Change ◽  
Farming Community ◽  
Holocene Sea Level

ABSTRACTNorse immigrants from Europe settled in southern Greenland in around AD 985 and managed to create a farming community during the Medieval Warm Period. The Norse vanished after approximately 500 years of existence in Greenland leaving no documentary evidence concerning why their culture foundered. The flooding of fertile grassland caused by late Holocene sea-level changes may be one of the factors that affected the Norse community. Holocene sea-level changes in Greenland are closely connected with the isostatic response of the Earth's crust to the behaviour of the Greenlandic ice sheet. An early Holocene regressive phase in south and west Greenland was reversed during the middle Holocene, and evidence is found for transgression and drowning of early-middle Holocene coast lines. This drowning started between 8 and 7ka BP in southern Greenland and continued during the Norse era to the present. An average late Holocene sea level rise in the order of 2–3 m/1000 years may be one of the factors that negatively affected the life of the Norse Greenlanders, and combined with other both socio-economic and environmental problems, such as increasing wind and sea ice expansion at the transition to the Little Ice Age, may eventually have led to the end of the Norse culture in Greenland.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document