Little Ice Age summer temperatures in western Norway from a 700-year tree-ring chronology

A ring-width Pinus sylvestris chronology from Sogndal in western Norway was created, covering the period AD 1240–2008 and allowing for reconstruction of monthly mean July temperatures. This reconstruction is the first of its kind from western Norway and it aims to densify the existing network of temperature-sensitive tree-ring proxy series to better understand past temperature variability in the ‘Little Ice Age’ and diminish the spatial uncertainty. Spatial correlation reveals strong agreement with temperatures in southern Norway, especially on the western side of the Scandinavian Mountains. Five prominent cold periods are identified on a decadal timescale, centred on 1480, 1580, 1635, 1709 and 1784 and ‘Little Ice Age’ cooling spanning from 1450 to the early 18th century. High interannual and decadal agreement is found with an independent temperature reconstruction from western Norway, which is based on data from grain harvests and terminal moraines. The reconstructed temperatures also correlate with other tree-ring-based temperature reconstructions from Fennoscandia, most strongly with data from central Sweden. Tree growth in Sogndal is correlated to the Scandinavian teleconnection index in the summer months, at least in the last half of the 20th century, and is positively correlated to the summer expression of the North Atlantic Oscillation in the early half of the 20th century. A significant response to major volcanic forcing in the Northern Hemisphere was found, and extreme years seem to be related to the dominance of high and low geopotential height that in turn represents variability in the path of the storm tracks over Fennoscandia. When compared with the variation in frontal positions with time of Nigardsbreen, an eastern outlet glacier from the Jostedalsbreen glacier in western Norway, cold summers in the early 18th century relates to the culmination of a rapid glacial advance that lead up to the 1748 ‘Little Ice Age’ maximum extent.

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Channels of the glacial river Jökulsá á Breiðamerkursandi

JOKULL ◽

10.33799/jokull2020.70.119 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 70 ◽

pp. 119-128

Author(s):

Snaevarr Gudmundsson ◽

Helgi Björnsson

Keyword(s):

20Th Century ◽

Coastal Erosion ◽

Little Ice Age ◽

Ice Age ◽

Outlet Glacier ◽

Main Road ◽

Old Maps ◽

Terminal Lakes ◽

Glacial River ◽

Peak Runoff

The glacial river Jökulsá á Breiðamerkursandi drains the Jökulsárlón tidal lagoon (27 km2), in Southeast Iceland. Despite being the shortest glacial outlet (0.6 km), it is among the most voluminous rivers in Iceland, with an estimated average drainage of 250–300 m3/s and has doubled its volume at peak runoff. Until a bridge was established, this was one of Iceland’s most infamous river and for travellers, cruising on horseback, the greatest obstacle to cross on the main road. The river began shaping its present channel in the late 19th century but was not permanently settled until the mid-20th century. Before that it used to wander around the fan, occasionally in several branches, or as a single heavy moving water. In this paper we present a map of its known runoffs and channels that were formed in the 19th and 20th centuries. Few channels were digitized from old maps, but several of those were identified and recorded by the late Flosi Björnsson (1906–1993), a farmer from the Kvísker, who guided travellers across the river before the bridge was built. The Breiðamerkurjökull outlet glacier of Vatnajökull, Southeast Iceland, advanced 10–15 km during the Little Ice Age. During the LIA advance the wide fan shaped shore in front of Breiðamerkurjökull gradually extended outward by >1 km, mainly due to sediment deposition by the Jökulsá river and few other temporal glacial river branches. At the turn of the 20th century the outlet glacier started to retreat slowly and in the 1930s terminal lakes were formed. With the formation of the Jökulsárlón tidal lagoon river dumping at the shore terminated and was replaced by a progressive coastal erosion. Currently ca. 0.9 km has eroded off the coast since the 1930s. A 0.65 km wide strip now remains between the coast and Jökulsárlón tidal lagoon, where the Jökulsá river and the remains of its former runway channels are located.

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Little Ice Age advance and retreat sediment budgets for an outlet glacier in western Norway

Boreas ◽

10.1111/j.1502-3885.2009.00133.x ◽

2010 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

VALENTIN BURKI ◽

LOUISE HANSEN ◽

OLA FREDIN ◽

THORBJØRN A. ANDERSEN ◽

ACHIM A. BEYLICH ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Little Ice Age ◽

Ice Age ◽

Outlet Glacier ◽

Sediment Budgets ◽

Western Norway

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A chronology of the Little Ice Age in the tropical Andes of Bolivia (16°S) and its implications for climate reconstruction

Quaternary Research ◽

10.1016/j.yqres.2008.02.012 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 70 (2) ◽

pp. 198-212 ◽

Cited By ~ 52

Author(s):

Antoine Rabatel ◽

Bernard Francou ◽

Vincent Jomelli ◽

Philippe Naveau ◽

Delphine Grancher

Keyword(s):

20Th Century ◽

Little Ice Age ◽

18Th Century ◽

Extreme Values ◽

Ice Age ◽

Tropical Andes ◽

Equilibrium Line Altitude ◽

Mountain Areas ◽

Study Region ◽

Glacier Recession

AbstractDating moraines by lichenometry enabled us to reconstruct glacier recession in the Bolivian Andes since the Little Ice Age maximum. On the 15 proglacial margins studied, we identified a system of ten principal moraines that marks the successive positions of glaciers over the last four centuries. Moraines were dated by performing statistical analysis of lichen measurements based on the extreme values theory. Like glaciers in many mid-latitude mountain areas, Bolivian glaciers reached their maximal extent during the second half of the 17th century. This glacier maximum coincides with the Maunder minimum of solar irradiance. By reconstructing the equilibrium-line altitude and changes in mass-balance, we think the glacier maximum may be due to a 20 to 30% increase in precipitation and a 1.1 to 1.2 °C decrease in temperature compared with present conditions. In the early 18th century, glaciers started to retreat at varying rates until the late 19th to early 20th century; this trend was generally associated with decreasing accumulation rates. By contrast, glacier recession in the 20th century was mainly the consequence of an increase in temperature and humidity. These results are consistent with observations made in the study region based on other proxies.

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Early-Holocene glacier fluctuations of northern Grovabreen, western Norway

The Holocene ◽

10.1177/0959683618810392 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 29 (2) ◽

pp. 187-196 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Asbjørn Rune Aa ◽

Eivind Sønstegaard

Keyword(s):

Little Ice Age ◽

Early Holocene ◽

Age Dating ◽

Ice Age ◽

Outlet Glacier ◽

Western Norway ◽

Exposure Age ◽

History Of ◽

Northern Side ◽

Lake Catchment

Marginal moraines on the northern side of Grovabreen, a plateau glacier in inner Sunnfjord, Western Norway, have been mapped and morphostratigraphically correlated with the Erdalen Event and possibly the Finse Event and the ‘Little Ice Age’. Schmidt-hammer exposure-age dating was used to evaluate the age of the most distinct marginal moraines by measuring the degree of surface weathering on boulders. The lithostratigraphy of lake sediments was analysed in a core from Dalevatnet in order to correlate this stratigraphy with the marginal moraines in the catchment area of the lake and reconstruct the early-Holocene history of Grovabreen. The lake catchment was deglaciated at 10,750 cal. yr BP. Two readvances of an outlet glacier in Fagredalen were dated to between 10,340 and 9960 cal. yr BP, correlated with the two-peaked Erdalen Event. A readvance shortly after 8450 cal. yr BP can most probably be correlated with the 8200 cal. yr BP Finse Event.

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A palaeotemperature record for the Finnish Lakeland based on microdensitometric variations in tree rings

Geochronometria ◽

10.2478/s13386-013-0163-0 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 41 (3) ◽

pp. 265-277 ◽

Cited By ~ 23

Author(s):

Samuli Helama ◽

Matti Vartiainen ◽

Jari Holopainen ◽

Hanna Mäkelä ◽

Taneli Kolström ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Tree Ring ◽

18Th Century ◽

Ring Width ◽

Warm Season ◽

Maunder Minimum ◽

Ice Age ◽

Crop Failure ◽

Northern Fennoscandia ◽

Tree Ring Data ◽

Instrumental Temperature

Abstract X-ray based tree-ring data of maximum latewood densities (MXD) was combined for south-eastern Finland. This data originated from subfossil and modern pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) materials comprising a continuous dendroclimatic record over the past millennium. Calibrating and verifying the MXD chronologies against the instrumental temperature data showed a promising opportunity to reconstruct warm-season (May through September) temperature variability. A new palaeotemperature record correlated statistically significantly with the long instrumental temperature records in the region and adjacent areas since the 1740s. Comparisons with tree-ring based (MXD and tree-ring width) reconstructions from northern Fennoscandia and northern Finland exhibited consistent summer temperature variations through the Medieval Climate Anomaly, Little Ice Age, and the 20th century warmth. A culmination of the LIA cooling during the early 18th century appeared consistently with the Maunder Minimum, when the solar activity was drastically reduced. A number of coolest reconstructed events between AD 1407 and 1902 were coeval to years of crop failure and famine as documented in the agro-historical chronicles. Results indicate an encouraging possibility of warm-season temperature reconstructions using middle/south boreal tree-ring archives to detail and enhance the understanding of past interactions between humans, ecosystems and the earth.

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Climate-induced treeline mortality during the termination of the Little Ice Age in the Greater Yellowstone Ecoregion, USA

The Holocene ◽

10.1177/09596836211011656 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 095968362110116

Author(s):

Maegen L Rochner ◽

Karen J Heeter ◽

Grant L Harley ◽

Matthew F Bekker ◽

Sally P Horn

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Tree Ring ◽

Little Ice Age ◽

Climate Changes ◽

Frost Damage ◽

Ice Age ◽

Spatial And Temporal Variability ◽

Whitebark Pine ◽

Engelmann Spruce ◽

Greater Yellowstone

Paleoclimate reconstructions for the western US show spatial variability in the timing, duration, and magnitude of climate changes within the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA, ca. 900–1350 CE) and Little Ice Age (LIA, ca. 1350–1850 CE), indicating that additional data are needed to more completely characterize late-Holocene climate change in the region. Here, we use dendrochronology to investigate how climate changes during the MCA and LIA affected a treeline, whitebark pine ( Pinus albicaulis Engelm.) ecosystem in the Greater Yellowstone Ecoregion (GYE). We present two new millennial-length tree-ring chronologies and multiple lines of tree-ring evidence from living and remnant whitebark pine and Engelmann spruce ( Picea engelmannii Parry ex. Engelm.) trees, including patterns of establishment and mortality; changes in tree growth; frost rings; and blue-intensity-based, reconstructed summer temperatures, to highlight the terminus of the LIA as one of the coldest periods of the last millennium for the GYE. Patterns of tree establishment and mortality indicate conditions favorable to recruitment during the latter half of the MCA and climate-induced mortality of trees during the middle-to-late LIA. These patterns correspond with decreased growth, frost damage, and reconstructed cooler temperature anomalies for the 1800–1850 CE period. Results provide important insight into how past climate change affected important GYE ecosystems and highlight the value of using multiple lines of proxy evidence, along with climate reconstructions of high spatial resolution, to better describe spatial and temporal variability in MCA and LIA climate and the ecological influence of climate change.

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Glacier dynamics at Helheim and Kangerdlugssuaq glaciers, southeast Greenland, since the Little Ice Age

The Cryosphere ◽

10.5194/tc-8-1497-2014 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 8 (4) ◽

pp. 1497-1507 ◽

Cited By ~ 25

Author(s):

S. A. Khan ◽

K. K. Kjeldsen ◽

K. H. Kjær ◽

S. Bevan ◽

A. Luckman ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mass Balance ◽

Little Ice Age ◽

Ice Age ◽

Short Term ◽

Velocity Change ◽

Outlet Glacier ◽

Episodic Events ◽

Highly Sensitive ◽

Decadal Scale ◽

Speed Up

Abstract. Observations over the past decade show significant ice loss associated with the speed-up of glaciers in southeast Greenland from 2003, followed by a deceleration from 2006. These short-term, episodic, dynamic perturbations have a major impact on the mass balance on the decadal scale. To improve the projection of future sea level rise, a long-term data record that reveals the mass balance beyond such episodic events is required. Here, we extend the observational record of marginal thinning of Helheim and Kangerdlugssuaq glaciers from 10 to more than 80 years. We show that, although the frontal portion of Helheim Glacier thinned by more than 100 m between 2003 and 2006, it thickened by more than 50 m during the previous two decades. In contrast, Kangerdlugssuaq Glacier underwent minor thinning of 40–50 m from 1981 to 1998 and major thinning of more than 100 m after 2003. Extending the record back to the end of the Little Ice Age (prior to 1930) shows no thinning of Helheim Glacier from its maximum extent during the Little Ice Age to 1981, while Kangerdlugssuaq Glacier underwent substantial thinning of 230 to 265 m. Comparison of sub-surface water temperature anomalies and variations in air temperature to records of thickness and velocity change suggest that both glaciers are highly sensitive to short-term atmospheric and ocean forcing, and respond very quickly to small fluctuations. On century timescales, however, multiple external parameters (e.g. outlet glacier shape) may dominate the mass change. These findings suggest that special care must be taken in the projection of future dynamic ice loss.

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Restoration Work in the Main Sanctuary of Amun of the Temple of Hatshepsut in Deir el-Bahari

Studies in Ancient Art and Civilization ◽

10.12797/saac.23.2019.23.03 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 23 ◽

pp. 51-71

Author(s):

Urszula Kraśniewska

Keyword(s):

20Th Century ◽

18Th Century ◽

Early 20Th Century ◽

Significant Extent ◽

Late 19Th Century ◽

Restoration Work ◽

Mediterranean Archaeology ◽

The University ◽

The Temple ◽

Early 18Th Century

The Sanctuary of Amun of the Temple of Hatshepsut in Deir el-Bahari was, starting from the early 18th century, gradually discovered, and has been analyzed by many researchers and scientists. In the late 19th century E. Naville was the first to concentrate to an significant extent on the Sanctuary rooms, which resulted in the elaboration of a vast architectural description prepared by Somers Clarke, his cooperator. In the early 20th century, Herbert Winlock conducted studies and analyses of the Sanctuary rooms. In 1961, a concession for conducting works was assigned to the Polish Station of Mediterranean Archaeology of the University of Warsaw, directed by Prof. Kazimierz Michałowski. Since that time, Polish Missions have conducted numerous architectural and conservation as well as epigraphic works, gradually ordering and reconstructing the Sanctuary.

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Tree-ring radiocarbon reveals reduced solar activity during Younger Dryas cooling

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-11654 ◽

2020 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Adam Sookdeo ◽

Bernd Kromer ◽

Florian Adolphi ◽

Jürg Beer ◽

Nicolas Brehm ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Solar Activity ◽

Tree Ring ◽

North Atlantic ◽

Little Ice Age ◽

Ice Core ◽

Younger Dryas ◽

Ice Age ◽

The North ◽

Long Duration ◽

Clear Sign

The Younger Dryas stadial (YD) was a return to glacial-like conditions in the North Atlantic region that interrupted deglacial warming around 12900 cal BP (before 1950 AD). Terrestrial and marine records suggest this event was initiated by the interruption of deep-water formation arising from North American freshwater runoff, but the causes of the millennia-long duration remain unclear. To investigate the solar activity, a possible YD driver, we exploit the cosmic production signals of tree-ring radiocarbon (14C) and ice-core beryllium-10 (10Be). Here we present the highest temporally resolved dataset of 14C measurements (n = 1558) derived from European tree rings that have been accurately extended back to 14226 cal BP (&#177;8, 2-&#963;), allowing precise alignment of ice-core records across this period. We identify a substantial increase in 14C and 10Be production starting at 12780 cal BP is comparable in magnitude to the historic Little Ice Age, being a clear sign of grand solar minima. We hypothesize the timing of the grand solar minima provides a significant amplifying factor leading to the harsh sustained glacial-like conditions seen in the YD.

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Mapping glaciers in Jotunheimen, South-Norway, during the "Little Ice Age" maximum

The Cryosphere ◽

10.5194/tc-3-231-2009 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 3 (2) ◽

pp. 231-243 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

S. Baumann ◽

S. Winkler ◽

L. M. Andreassen

Keyword(s):

Little Ice Age ◽

18Th Century ◽

Field Measurements ◽

Geographical Information ◽

Ice Age ◽

Inventory Data ◽

Digital Elevation ◽

Remote Sensing Techniques ◽

Southern Norway ◽

Elevation Model

Abstract. The maximum glacier extent during the "Little Ice Age" (mid 18th century AD) in Jotunheimen, southern Norway, was mapped using remote sensing techniques. Interpretation of existing glaciochronological studies, analysis of geomorphological maps, and own GPS-field measurements were applied for validation of the mapping. The length of glacier centrelines and other inventory data were determined using a Geographical Information System (GIS) and a Digital Elevation Model. "Little Ice Age" maximum extent for a total of 233 glaciers comprising an overall glacier area of about 290 km2 was mapped. Mean length of the centreline was calculated to 1.6 km. Until AD 2003, the area and length shrank by 35% and 34%, respectively, compared with the maximum "Little Ice Age" extent.

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