Recent tropical Andean glacier retreat is unprecedented in the Holocene

Tropical glaciers have retreated over recent decades, but whether the magnitude of this retreat exceeds the bounds of Holocene fluctuations is unclear. We measured cosmogenic beryllium-10 and carbon-14 concentrations in recently exposed bedrock at the margin of four glaciers spanning the tropical An...

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Published inScience (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 385; no. 6708; pp. 517 - 521
Main Authors Gorin, Andrew L, Shakun, Jeremy D, Jones, Andrew G, Kennedy, Tori M, Marcott, Shaun A, Goehring, Brent M, Zoet, Lucas K, Jomelli, Vincent, Bromley, Gordon R M, Mateo, Emilio I, Mark, Bryan G, Rodbell, Donald T, Gilbert, Adrien, Caffee, Marc W
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States The American Association for the Advancement of Science 02.08.2024
Subjects
Climate change
Glaciers
Global warming
Holocene
Ice cover
Nuclides
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Summary:Tropical glaciers have retreated over recent decades, but whether the magnitude of this retreat exceeds the bounds of Holocene fluctuations is unclear. We measured cosmogenic beryllium-10 and carbon-14 concentrations in recently exposed bedrock at the margin of four glaciers spanning the tropical Andes to reconstruct their past extents relative to today. Nuclide concentrations are near zero in almost all samples, suggesting that these locations were never exposed during the Holocene. Our data imply that many glaciers in the tropics are probably now smaller than they have been in at least 11,700 years, making the tropics the first large region where this milestone has been documented.
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ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.adg7546