The glacier advance at the onset of the Little Ice Age in the Alps

New evidence from Mont Miné and Morteratsch glaciers

Bibliographic Data

ID12267652
AuthorsKurt Nicolussi (0000-0002-1737-4119, Universität Innsbruck, corresponding author), Melaine Le Roy (0000-0002-1886-6051, Institute for Environmental Sciences, Climate Change Impacts and Risks in the Anthropocene (C-CIA), University of Geneva, Switzerland), Christian Schlüchter (0000-0002-6262-5554, University of Bern), Markus Stoffel (0000-0003-0816-1303, Institute for Environmental Sciences, Climate Change Impacts and Risks in the Anthropocene (C-CIA), University of Geneva, Switzerland), Lukas Wacker (0000-0002-8215-2678, Laboratory of Ion Beam Physics, ETHZ, Switzerland)
Year2022
Volume32
Issue7
Pages624-638
Publication date2022-05-10
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Holocene (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0959-6836 • E-ISSN: 1477-0911
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/09596836221088247
OpenAlexW4280610558
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited42

The term ‘Little Ice Age’ (LIA) is classically used to define a period of repeated and extensive glacier advances during the last millennium. In the meanwhile, this term is also used to address the period of relatively low temperatures between the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA), or Medieval Warm Period, and present-day warming. The end of the LIA is generally set to the mid or late 1800s CE, however, the published onset dates of the LIA are more variable from the mid 1200s to the late 1500s. At Mont Miné and Morteratsch glaciers, Swiss Alps, we sampled and subsequently analysed detrital as well as in situ tree remnants from the early LIA period. At both glaciers, trees with lifespans of up to about 400 years were buried at various lateral moraine sites. The corresponding advance of both glaciers can be traced from the 1280s until the 1310s. At Morteratsch glacier, this early LIA advance phase culminated likely around 1375 CE. Evidence collected at both glaciers indicates that the ice surfaces were at least c. 12–15 m from the lateral moraine crests deposited during the maximum extent of the LIA. This suggests a similar (though very slightly weaker) magnitude than later LIA advances at our sites. The advances of Mont Miné and Morteratsch glaciers coincide with relatively cool summer temperatures from the late 1200s to the late 1300s. Taken together, the onset of the Little Ice Age in the Alps can be considered to be c. 1260 CE. The Little Ice Age was not a uniform period, but had several phases as can be derived from the records of Alpine glaciers and summer temperatures. We propose a subdivision of the LIA in the European Alps into an early (1260–1380 CE), an intermediate (1380–1575 CE) and a main (1575–1860 CE) phase

Climate change · Climatology · Cryosphere · Geography · Glacial period · Glacier · Glacier morphology · Ice age · Ice stream · Little ice age · Moraine · Period (music · Physical geography · Rock glacier · Sea ice · Cryospheric studies and observations · Geology and Paleoclimatology Research · Tree-ring climate responses · Geology · Oceanography · Paleontology

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