Holocene glacier variations in the Alps

First insights into the age of the giant ice deposits in the Eisriesenwelt cave (Austria)

“…The onset of ice accumulation at Mörkgletscher around 3.2 kyr BP may have been related to an episode of glacier advance in the Alps, known as the Göschenen 1 advance and more recently called Iron Age Advance Period 1, starting around 3 kyr BP 43 . The change towards a higher mean accumulation rate during approximately the thirteenth century AD occurred at the onset of the Little Ice Age, which started in the Alps around 1260 AD and ended at about 1860 AD 44 .…”

Tree-ring Dating of the Little Ice Age Maxima of Arolla Glaciers (Valais, Switzerland)

“…Glacier variations were early linked to climate evolution in the region (e.g., Venetz, 1833). Later, improved knowledge about the climate sensitivity of Alpine glaciers has made them appear as the best suited proxies to reconstruct climate variability over a wide range of timescales during the Holocene (Oerlemans, 2005;Lüthi, 2014;Le Roy et al, 2024).…”

“…Based on historical sources and tree-ring dating three main periods of glacier maxima (14th, 17th and 19th centuries) have been identified in the Alps (Zumbühl and Holzhauser, 1988;Holzhauser et al, 2005;Nicolussi et al, 2022). As the most recent period of sustained glacier activity during the Holocene (Le Roy et al, 2024), the LIA can be used as an analogue to understand the triggers responsible for previous cold periods. Proposed main forcings for the LIA multi-secular cooling include solar activity and clusters of volcanic eruptions (Brönnimann et al, 2019).…”

“…Under favourable conditions, this method can provide spatially distributed information with high resolution, and even outperform historical dating from a chronological point of view, by reaching a seasonal resolution. Its use in palaeoglaciology has led to considerable progress with respect to the Alpine Holocene glacier chronology, which is the most accurate terrestrial record available to date globally (Pelfini, 1999;Nicolussi and Patzelt, 2001;Holzhauser et al, 2005;Le Roy et al, 2015;Solomina et al, 2016;Nicolussi et al, 2022;Le Roy et al, 2024).…”

“…show three periods of moraine deposition during the Holocene prior to the late LIA: at ~11.4 ka, ~3.5 ka and ~0.55 ka (Schimmelpfennig et al, 2012). They occurred during the Preboreal Oscillation (PBO), the Bronze Age Advance Period (BAAP) and the early LIA (eLIA), respectively (Le Roy et al, 2024). In addition, tests carried out on the most recent moraines show that boulders are devoid of inherited nuclides at this site (Abbühl, 2004;Abbühl et al, 2009;Schimmelpfennig et al, 2012).…”