Geological Society of America

37 Reconstructing Past Climate from the Geologic Record of Ice Sheets and Mountain Glaciers

Monday, 18 March 2019
1:30 PM - 5:30 PM
New Hampshire Room

A BI-HEMISPHERIC PERSPECTIVE ON THE LAST GLACIAL TERMINATION FROM THE SOUTHERN ALPS OF NEW ZEALAND, THE HAIZI SHAN OF SOUTHEASTERN TIBET, AND ALTAI MOUNTAINS OF WESTERN MONGOLIA

Paper number: 37-5
Program: Theme Sessions
Time: 2:50 PM – 3:10 PM

Authors

Peter Strand Presenting Author
University of Maine, Orono, ME
Aaron E. Putnam
University of Maine, Orono, ME
Joerg M. Schaefer
Columbia University, Palisades, NY
George H. Denton
University of Maine, Orono, ME
Weijian Zhou
Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an
Zhisheng An
Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an
Oyungerel Sambuu
Mongolian University of Science and Technology, Ulaanbaatar
Roseanne Schwartz
Columbia University, Palisades, NY

Abstract

The last glacial termination (~18,000 – 11,000 yrs ago) represents the last great global warming and the last time CO₂ rose by a substantial amount before the industrial period. Understanding the processes that drove this glacial to interglacial transition will help refine the global climate system sensitivity to CO₂ and will place ongoing global warming into a paleoclimatic context. Here, we test possible drivers of the last glacial termination by comparing chronologies of mountain glacier recession in the middle latitudes of both polar hemispheres. Glacier fluctuations afford insight into past climate conditions, because extra-polar mountain glaciers are highly sensitive to atmospheric temperature. We present ¹⁰Be surface-exposure chronologies and glacial geomorphologic maps of mountain glacier recession since the Last Glacial Maximum in the Southern Alps of New Zealand (44°S, 170°E), the Haizi Shan of southeastern Tibet (30°N, 100°E), and the Altai Mountains of western Mongolia (49°N, 88°E). On the basis of these chronologies, we evaluate the relative roles of rising atmospheric CO₂, local insolation forcing, and ocean-atmosphere reorganizations in driving the warming that ended the last ice age.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 51, No. 1

doi: 10.1130/abs/2019NE-327865

© Copyright 2019 The Geological Society of America (GSA), all rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted to the author(s) of this abstract to reproduce and distribute it freely, for noncommercial purposes. Permission is hereby granted to any individual scientist to download a single copy of this electronic file and reproduce up to 20 paper copies for noncommercial purposes advancing science and education, including classroom use, providing all reproductions include the complete content shown here, including the author information. All other forms of reproduction and/or transmittal are prohibited without written permission from GSA Copyright Permissions.