10Be age constraints on latest Pleistocene and Holocene cirque glaciation across the western United States

• Published in: NPJ climate and atmospheric science Vol. 2; no. 1
• Main Authors: Marcott, Shaun A., Clark, Peter U., Shakun, Jeremy D., Brook, Edward J., Davis, P. Thompson, Caffee, Marc W.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 30.01.2019; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 704/106/125; 704/106/413; Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; Atmospheric Sciences; Beryllium 10; Chronology; Cirques; Cirques (landforms); Climate Change/Climate Change Impacts; Climate models; Climate variability; Climatology; Cooling; Deglaciation; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Fluctuations; Glacial drift; Glacial periods; Glaciation; Glaciers; Glaciology; Greenhouse effect; Greenhouse gases; Holocene; Ice ages; Insolation; Isotopes; Moraines; Paleoclimate; Pleistocene; Summer; United States > US
• ISSN: 2397-3722; 2397-3722
• DOI: 10.1038/s41612-019-0062-z

Well-dated records of alpine glacier fluctuations provide important insights into the temporal and spatial structure of climate variability. Cirque moraine records from the western United States have historically been interpreted as a resurgence of alpine glaciation in the middle-to-late Holocene (i.e., Neoglaciation), but these moraines remain poorly dated because of limited numerical age constraints at most locations. Here we present 130 10 Be ages on 19 moraines deposited by 14 cirque glaciers across this region that have been interpreted as recording these Neoglacial advances. Our 10 Be chronology indicates instead that these moraines were deposited during the latest Pleistocene to earliest Holocene, with several as old as 14–15ka. Our results thus show that glaciers retreated from their Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) extent into cirques relatively early during the last deglaciation, experienced small fluctuations during the Bølling–Allerød–Younger Dryas interval, and remained within the maximum limit of the Little Ice Age (LIA) advance of the last several centuries throughout most of the Holocene. Climate modeling suggests that increasing local summer insolation and greenhouse gases were the primary controls on early glacier retreat from their LGM positions. We then infer that subsequent intrinsic climate variability and Younger Dryas cooling caused minor fluctuations during the latest Pleistocene, while the LIA advance represents the culmination of a cooling trend through the Holocene in response to decreasing boreal summer insolation. Paleoclimate: A rocky reworking of Holocene glaciology New dating of glacially-deposited rocks substantially revises our understanding of the waxing and waning of ice since the last glacial maximum. Glaciologists have long thought that moraines throughout the western United States represent ‘neoglacial’ advances about 6,000 years ago. Now, a multi-institution team led by Shaun Marcott at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has found — using cosmogenic isotopes — that these terminal deposits left by advancing glaciers are instead 9,000 to 15,000 years old. The research advances prior work by using absolute, not relative ages, and documents that glaciers retreated after the last glacial maximum ~ 21,000 years ago, fluctuated locally throughout much of the Holocene, and re-advanced during the Little Ice Age of a few hundred years ago. Glacial advances that might have occurred during the neoglacial were wiped away by the more extensive glaciations of the Little Ice Age.