Brian H Luckman
Biographic Data
| ID | 2045884 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Brian H Luckman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Brian H |
| FAMILY NAME | Luckman |
| SIGNATURE | LUCKMAN B H |
| AFFILIATIONS | Western University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 29 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1979 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Expanding the Yukon tree ring Blue Intensity network to assess divergence effects and enhance climate reconstructions
The Divergence Problem (DP) – classically defined as a breakdown in the relationship between tree growth and temperature in recent decades – poses a major challenge to developing robust tree-ring based climate reconstructions. This is particularly relevant in northwestern North America (NWNA), a climatically sensitive yet underrepresented region in dendroclimatological networks. To address this gap and the implications of the DP, we developed a n…
Improved dendroclimatic calibration using blue intensity in the southern Yukon
In north-western North America, the so-called divergence problem (DP) is expressed in tree ring width (RW) as an unstable temperature signal in recent decades. Maximum latewood density (MXD), from the same region, shows minimal evidence of DP. While MXD is a superior proxy for summer temperatures, there are very few long MXD records from North America. Latewood blue intensity (LWB) measures similar wood properties as MXD, expresses a similar clim…
Blue Intensity for dendroclimatology
Maximum latewood density (MXD) is a strong proxy of summer temperatures. Despite this, there is a paucity of long MXD chronologies in the Northern Hemisphere, which limits large-scale tree-ring-based reconstructions of past temperature which are dominated by ring-width (RW) data – a weaker temperature proxy at inter-annual time-scales. This paucity likely results from the relative expense of measuring MXD and the lack of laboratories with the fac…
Long-term snowpack variability and change in the North American cordillera
The Neoglacial History of Robson Glacier, British Columbia, Canada
Challenges for Mountain Regions—Tackling Complexity
Tree-ring dating of the nineteenth-century advance of Brady Glacier and the evolution of two ice-marginal lakes, Alaska
We utilized dendrochronology and precise elevation-constrained mapping to date glacially overridden and drowned trees at the margin of Brady Glacier in southeast Alaska. This technique allowed determination of the timing of the former tidewater glacier’s last advance and consequent formation and filling of two marginal lakes. The subfossil tree-ring chronology spans the interval from AD 1370 to 1861. Brady Glacier impounded Spur Lake to an elevat…
Little Ice Age fluctuations of Glaciar Río Manso in the North Patagonian Andes of Argentina
Little Ice Age (LIA) fluctuations of Glaciar R"o Manso, north Patagonian Andes, Argentina are studied using information from previous work and dendrogeomorphological analyses of living and subfossil wood. The most extensive LIA expansion occurred between the late 1700s and the 1830"1840s. Except for a massive older frontal moraine system apparently predating ca. 2240 14 C yr BP and a small section of a south lateral moraine ridge that is at least…
Tree-Ring Dates for the Maximum Little Ice Age Advance of Kaskawulsh Glacier, St. Elias Mountains, Canada
A dendroglaciological study at Kaskawulsh Glacier provides the first calendar dating of a Little Ice Age glacier advance in the northeast St. Elias Mountains of Yukon Territory. Ring series from white spruce trees, Picea glauca (Moench) Voss, that had been sheared, tilted, and killed by deposition of till at the glacier’s terminal moraine were cross-dated with a millennium-length ring-width chronology developed at a site near the south end of Klu…
Climatic and hydrologic variability during the past millennium in the eastern Rocky Mountains and northern Great Plains of western Canada
Modelling of tree-ring δ 13 C and δ 18 O data from the Columbia Icefield area in the eastern Rocky Mountains of western Canada provides fuller understanding of climatic and hydrologic variability over the past 1000 yr in this region, based on reconstruction of changes in growth season atmospheric relative humidity ( RH grs ), winter temperature ( T win ) and the precipitation δ 18 O– T win relation. The Little Ice Age (~ AD 1530s–1890s) is marked…
Darkening Peaks
Glacier Mass Balance in the Northern U.S. And Canadian Rockies
The Mt Logan Holocene—late Wisconsinan isotope record
The ice core recovered from Prospector Russell Col on Mt Logan (5.4 km a.s.l.), in the Yukon spans over 20 000 years. This unique record offers a Pacific view of the stable isotope and chemical record from the Lateglacial to the present. The timescale is based on seasonal counted years, the largest known volcanic acid signatures and the major shift in stable isotopes and chemistry at the end of the Younger Dryas. There are large and sustained cha…
Obituary / Notice nécrologique
Rapid changes in the level of Kluane Lake in Yukon Territory over the last millennium
The level of Kluane Lake, the largest lake in Yukon Territory, was lower than at present during most of the Holocene. The lake rose rapidly in the late seventeenth century to a level 12 m above present, drowning forest and stranding driftwood on a conspicuous high-stand beach, remnants of which are preserved at the south end of the lake. Kluane Lake fell back to near its present level by the end of the eighteenth century and has fluctuated within…
Tree-ring-based mass-balance estimates for the past 300 years at Peyto Glacier, Alberta, Canada
Tree rings were used to reconstruct mass balance for Peyto Glacier in the Canadian Rocky Mountains from A.D. 1673 to 1994. Summer balance was reconstructed from tree-ring estimates of summer temperature and precipitation in the Canadian Rockies. Winter balance was derived from tree-ring data from sites bordering the Gulf of Alaska and in western British Columbia. The models for winter and summer balance each explain over 40% of the variance in th…
Dendroclimatic reconstruction of maximum summer temperatures from upper treeline sites in Interior British Columbia, Canada
Two independent reconstructions of maximum May–August temperatures are developed from a new network of Engelmann spruce tree-ring chronologies at treeline sites across Interior British Columbia (IBC). The IBC reconstruction (ad 1600–1997) uses the longest three ring-width (RW) and two maximum latewood density (MXD) chronologies from the region. The shorter (regional) reconstruction (REG, 1845–1997) is based on an independent, more broadly based n…
Dendroclimatic reconstruction of precipitation for sites in the southern Canadian Rockies
Seven Douglas fir ( Pseudotsuga menziesii) tree-ring chronologies were developed from sites in Banff and Jasper National Parks, Alberta, and near Cranbrook, British Columbia. The chronologies ranged in length from 191 to 691 years and display a strong precipitation signal. Multiple regression models were developed that calibrate .50% of the variance in the instrumental records and were used to reconstruct annual (pAugust– July or pJuly–June) prec…
Impact of Climate Fluctuations on Mountain Environments in the Canadian Rockies
This paper presents examples of environmental changes in the Canadian Rockies in the context of a 1.5°C increase in mean annual temperatures over the last 100 years. During this period increases in winter temperatures have been more than twice as large as those during spring and summer. Glacier cover has decreased by at least 25% during the 20th century and glacier fronts have receded to positions last occupied ca. 3000 years ago. These two lines…
Landscape and Climate Change in the Central Canadian Rockies During the 20th Century
This paper reviews selected evidence of environmental changes in the central Canadian Rockies during the 20th century. The instrumental climate record shows that mean annual temperatures have risen ca. 1.4°C over the last 100 years but seasonal patterns of change are complex. The greatest increases have been in winter temperatures (3.2°C / century). Precipitation data, though limited, show variable patterns of change on decadal scales with genera…
Tree-ring based reconstruction of summer temperatures at the Columbia Icefield, Alberta, Canada, AD 1073-1983
April-August temperatures are reconstructed from maximum latewood density and ring-width data for a tree-line site in the Canadian Rockies of Alberta close to Athabasca Glacier. The chronology primarily utilizes Picea engelmannii with some Abies lasiocarpa snags. This reconstruction (AD 1073-1983) is the longest densitometrically based summer temperature record from boreal North America. Mean temperatures from 1101- 1900 were 0.71°C below the 196…
Neoglacial Glacier Fluctuations in the Canadian Rockies
The Little Ice Age was the most extensive Neoglacial glacier advance in the Canadian Rockies. Evidence of earlier, less-extensive Neoglacial glacier advances is based on wood recovered from several glacier forefields. Wood flushed out of Athabasca Glacier (7550-8230 yr B.P., three dates) and Dome Glacier (6120-6380 yr B.P., two dates) indicates that forests occurred upvalley of present glacier termini during the Hypsithermal. Detrital logs from P…
Global Change
Geological processes are fundamental to the understanding of Global Change and the geological record provides a baseline against which to assess the nature and significance of contemporary global change (Price 1986)
Oxygen Isotope Ratios from Tree Rings Containing Compression Wood
Oxygen isotope determinations on the α-cellulose of tree rings cut from two leaning Picea engelmannii revealed significant differences between results from normal and compression wood radii. Nine samples (10-year periods) from the normal wood radius (1721–1953) in one tree showed good agreement with proxy climate information and maximum differences of 1.8‰ between the “warmest” and “coolest” decades sampled. Differences of equivalent magnitude we…
Mountain Areas and Global Change
Brian H. Luckman, Mountain Areas and Global Change: A View from the Canadian Rockies, Mountain Research and Development, Vol. 10, No. 2, Transformation of Mountain Environments (TOME). Part One (May, 1990), pp. 183-195
The Mt Logan Holocene—late Wisconsinan isotope record
The ice core recovered from Prospector Russell Col on Mt Logan (5.4 km a.s.l.), in the Yukon spans over 20 000 years. This unique record offers a Pacific view of the stable isotope and chemical record from the Lateglacial to the present. The timescale is based on seasonal counted years, the largest known volcanic acid signatures and the major shift in stable isotopes and chemistry at the end of the Younger Dryas. There are large and sustained cha…
Tree-ring based reconstruction of summer temperatures at the Columbia Icefield, Alberta, Canada, AD 1073-1983
April-August temperatures are reconstructed from maximum latewood density and ring-width data for a tree-line site in the Canadian Rockies of Alberta close to Athabasca Glacier. The chronology primarily utilizes Picea engelmannii with some Abies lasiocarpa snags. This reconstruction (AD 1073-1983) is the longest densitometrically based summer temperature record from boreal North America. Mean temperatures from 1101- 1900 were 0.71°C below the 196…
Dendroclimatic reconstruction of maximum summer temperatures from upper treeline sites in Interior British Columbia, Canada
Two independent reconstructions of maximum May–August temperatures are developed from a new network of Engelmann spruce tree-ring chronologies at treeline sites across Interior British Columbia (IBC). The IBC reconstruction (ad 1600–1997) uses the longest three ring-width (RW) and two maximum latewood density (MXD) chronologies from the region. The shorter (regional) reconstruction (REG, 1845–1997) is based on an independent, more broadly based n…
Impact of Climate Fluctuations on Mountain Environments in the Canadian Rockies
This paper presents examples of environmental changes in the Canadian Rockies in the context of a 1.5°C increase in mean annual temperatures over the last 100 years. During this period increases in winter temperatures have been more than twice as large as those during spring and summer. Glacier cover has decreased by at least 25% during the 20th century and glacier fronts have receded to positions last occupied ca. 3000 years ago. These two lines…
Landscape and Climate Change in the Central Canadian Rockies During the 20th Century
This paper reviews selected evidence of environmental changes in the central Canadian Rockies during the 20th century. The instrumental climate record shows that mean annual temperatures have risen ca. 1.4°C over the last 100 years but seasonal patterns of change are complex. The greatest increases have been in winter temperatures (3.2°C / century). Precipitation data, though limited, show variable patterns of change on decadal scales with genera…
Blue Intensity for dendroclimatology
Maximum latewood density (MXD) is a strong proxy of summer temperatures. Despite this, there is a paucity of long MXD chronologies in the Northern Hemisphere, which limits large-scale tree-ring-based reconstructions of past temperature which are dominated by ring-width (RW) data – a weaker temperature proxy at inter-annual time-scales. This paucity likely results from the relative expense of measuring MXD and the lack of laboratories with the fac…
Dendroclimatic reconstruction of precipitation for sites in the southern Canadian Rockies
Seven Douglas fir ( Pseudotsuga menziesii) tree-ring chronologies were developed from sites in Banff and Jasper National Parks, Alberta, and near Cranbrook, British Columbia. The chronologies ranged in length from 191 to 691 years and display a strong precipitation signal. Multiple regression models were developed that calibrate .50% of the variance in the instrumental records and were used to reconstruct annual (pAugust– July or pJuly–June) prec…
Improved dendroclimatic calibration using blue intensity in the southern Yukon
In north-western North America, the so-called divergence problem (DP) is expressed in tree ring width (RW) as an unstable temperature signal in recent decades. Maximum latewood density (MXD), from the same region, shows minimal evidence of DP. While MXD is a superior proxy for summer temperatures, there are very few long MXD records from North America. Latewood blue intensity (LWB) measures similar wood properties as MXD, expresses a similar clim…
Holocene Glacier Fluctuations in the Middle Canadian Rocky Mountains
Holocene glacial advances in the Banff–Jasper–Yoho area of the Canadian Rocky Mountains have been extremely limited in extent. Limiting 14 C dates from two sites within 1 km of contemporary glaciers of fresh terminal moraines indicate that the late Wisconsin Ice Sheet and valley glaciers disappeared prior to 9660 yr B.P. Two subsequent glacial advances are recognized. The earlier Crowfoot Advance is represented by moraines and rock-glacier deposi…
Reconstruction of Holocene Changes in Alpine Vegetation and Climate in the Maligne Range, Jasper National Park, Alberta
Pollen, macrofossil (logs and needles), and oxygen-isotope data from tree rings are presented for three alpine bog sites in the Maligne Range of the Canadian Rockies. Organic sedimentation at the Watchtower site began prior to ca. 9500 14 C yr B.P. and by 8770 yr B.P. timberlines were at least 100 m above present levels. The two pollen records are dominated by Pinus and subsequent changes in timberlines are inferred from pollen-ratio data ( Abies…
Oxygen Isotope Ratios from Tree Rings Containing Compression Wood
Oxygen isotope determinations on the α-cellulose of tree rings cut from two leaning Picea engelmannii revealed significant differences between results from normal and compression wood radii. Nine samples (10-year periods) from the normal wood radius (1721–1953) in one tree showed good agreement with proxy climate information and maximum differences of 1.8‰ between the “warmest” and “coolest” decades sampled. Differences of equivalent magnitude we…
Mountain Areas and Global Change
Brian H. Luckman, Mountain Areas and Global Change: A View from the Canadian Rockies, Mountain Research and Development, Vol. 10, No. 2, Transformation of Mountain Environments (TOME). Part One (May, 1990), pp. 183-195
Global Change
Geological processes are fundamental to the understanding of Global Change and the geological record provides a baseline against which to assess the nature and significance of contemporary global change (Price 1986)
Neoglacial Glacier Fluctuations in the Canadian Rockies
The Little Ice Age was the most extensive Neoglacial glacier advance in the Canadian Rockies. Evidence of earlier, less-extensive Neoglacial glacier advances is based on wood recovered from several glacier forefields. Wood flushed out of Athabasca Glacier (7550-8230 yr B.P., three dates) and Dome Glacier (6120-6380 yr B.P., two dates) indicates that forests occurred upvalley of present glacier termini during the Hypsithermal. Detrital logs from P…
Tree-ring based reconstruction of summer temperatures at the Columbia Icefield, Alberta, Canada, AD 1073-1983
April-August temperatures are reconstructed from maximum latewood density and ring-width data for a tree-line site in the Canadian Rockies of Alberta close to Athabasca Glacier. The chronology primarily utilizes Picea engelmannii with some Abies lasiocarpa snags. This reconstruction (AD 1073-1983) is the longest densitometrically based summer temperature record from boreal North America. Mean temperatures from 1101- 1900 were 0.71°C below the 196…
Landscape and Climate Change in the Central Canadian Rockies During the 20th Century
This paper reviews selected evidence of environmental changes in the central Canadian Rockies during the 20th century. The instrumental climate record shows that mean annual temperatures have risen ca. 1.4°C over the last 100 years but seasonal patterns of change are complex. The greatest increases have been in winter temperatures (3.2°C / century). Precipitation data, though limited, show variable patterns of change on decadal scales with genera…
Impact of Climate Fluctuations on Mountain Environments in the Canadian Rockies
This paper presents examples of environmental changes in the Canadian Rockies in the context of a 1.5°C increase in mean annual temperatures over the last 100 years. During this period increases in winter temperatures have been more than twice as large as those during spring and summer. Glacier cover has decreased by at least 25% during the 20th century and glacier fronts have receded to positions last occupied ca. 3000 years ago. These two lines…
Dendroclimatic reconstruction of precipitation for sites in the southern Canadian Rockies
Seven Douglas fir ( Pseudotsuga menziesii) tree-ring chronologies were developed from sites in Banff and Jasper National Parks, Alberta, and near Cranbrook, British Columbia. The chronologies ranged in length from 191 to 691 years and display a strong precipitation signal. Multiple regression models were developed that calibrate .50% of the variance in the instrumental records and were used to reconstruct annual (pAugust– July or pJuly–June) prec…
Dendroclimatic reconstruction of maximum summer temperatures from upper treeline sites in Interior British Columbia, Canada
Two independent reconstructions of maximum May–August temperatures are developed from a new network of Engelmann spruce tree-ring chronologies at treeline sites across Interior British Columbia (IBC). The IBC reconstruction (ad 1600–1997) uses the longest three ring-width (RW) and two maximum latewood density (MXD) chronologies from the region. The shorter (regional) reconstruction (REG, 1845–1997) is based on an independent, more broadly based n…
Tree-ring-based mass-balance estimates for the past 300 years at Peyto Glacier, Alberta, Canada
Tree rings were used to reconstruct mass balance for Peyto Glacier in the Canadian Rocky Mountains from A.D. 1673 to 1994. Summer balance was reconstructed from tree-ring estimates of summer temperature and precipitation in the Canadian Rockies. Winter balance was derived from tree-ring data from sites bordering the Gulf of Alaska and in western British Columbia. The models for winter and summer balance each explain over 40% of the variance in th…
Rapid changes in the level of Kluane Lake in Yukon Territory over the last millennium
The level of Kluane Lake, the largest lake in Yukon Territory, was lower than at present during most of the Holocene. The lake rose rapidly in the late seventeenth century to a level 12 m above present, drowning forest and stranding driftwood on a conspicuous high-stand beach, remnants of which are preserved at the south end of the lake. Kluane Lake fell back to near its present level by the end of the eighteenth century and has fluctuated within…
Obituary / Notice nécrologique
Climatic and hydrologic variability during the past millennium in the eastern Rocky Mountains and northern Great Plains of western Canada
Modelling of tree-ring δ 13 C and δ 18 O data from the Columbia Icefield area in the eastern Rocky Mountains of western Canada provides fuller understanding of climatic and hydrologic variability over the past 1000 yr in this region, based on reconstruction of changes in growth season atmospheric relative humidity ( RH grs ), winter temperature ( T win ) and the precipitation δ 18 O– T win relation. The Little Ice Age (~ AD 1530s–1890s) is marked…
Darkening Peaks
Glacier Mass Balance in the Northern U.S. And Canadian Rockies
The Mt Logan Holocene—late Wisconsinan isotope record
The ice core recovered from Prospector Russell Col on Mt Logan (5.4 km a.s.l.), in the Yukon spans over 20 000 years. This unique record offers a Pacific view of the stable isotope and chemical record from the Lateglacial to the present. The timescale is based on seasonal counted years, the largest known volcanic acid signatures and the major shift in stable isotopes and chemistry at the end of the Younger Dryas. There are large and sustained cha…
Tree-Ring Dates for the Maximum Little Ice Age Advance of Kaskawulsh Glacier, St. Elias Mountains, Canada
A dendroglaciological study at Kaskawulsh Glacier provides the first calendar dating of a Little Ice Age glacier advance in the northeast St. Elias Mountains of Yukon Territory. Ring series from white spruce trees, Picea glauca (Moench) Voss, that had been sheared, tilted, and killed by deposition of till at the glacier’s terminal moraine were cross-dated with a millennium-length ring-width chronology developed at a site near the south end of Klu…
Little Ice Age fluctuations of Glaciar Río Manso in the North Patagonian Andes of Argentina
Little Ice Age (LIA) fluctuations of Glaciar R"o Manso, north Patagonian Andes, Argentina are studied using information from previous work and dendrogeomorphological analyses of living and subfossil wood. The most extensive LIA expansion occurred between the late 1700s and the 1830"1840s. Except for a massive older frontal moraine system apparently predating ca. 2240 14 C yr BP and a small section of a south lateral moraine ridge that is at least…
Challenges for Mountain Regions—Tackling Complexity
Tree-ring dating of the nineteenth-century advance of Brady Glacier and the evolution of two ice-marginal lakes, Alaska
We utilized dendrochronology and precise elevation-constrained mapping to date glacially overridden and drowned trees at the margin of Brady Glacier in southeast Alaska. This technique allowed determination of the timing of the former tidewater glacier’s last advance and consequent formation and filling of two marginal lakes. The subfossil tree-ring chronology spans the interval from AD 1370 to 1861. Brady Glacier impounded Spur Lake to an elevat…
The Neoglacial History of Robson Glacier, British Columbia, Canada
Long-term snowpack variability and change in the North American cordillera
Blue Intensity for dendroclimatology
Maximum latewood density (MXD) is a strong proxy of summer temperatures. Despite this, there is a paucity of long MXD chronologies in the Northern Hemisphere, which limits large-scale tree-ring-based reconstructions of past temperature which are dominated by ring-width (RW) data – a weaker temperature proxy at inter-annual time-scales. This paucity likely results from the relative expense of measuring MXD and the lack of laboratories with the fac…
Geography (22 works) · Physical geography (20 works) · Tree-ring climate responses (16 works) · Geology (15 works) · Geology and Paleoclimatology Research (15 works) · Climatology (13 works) · Glacier (13 works) · Geology (12 works) · Dendrochronology (11 works) · Climate change (10 works)