Variations of the tree line and glaciers in the Central and Eastern Altai regions in the Holocene

Holocene glacier fluctuations

“…5). In the Altai, wood macrofossils from this period were found up to 250 m above the tree line (Nazarov et al, 2012), in the European Alps (Nicolussi and Patzelt, 2000;Hormes et al, 2001;Joerin et al, 2006Joerin et al, , 2008Ivy-Ochs et al, 2009) and in the Rocky Mountains (Osborn and Luckman, 1988) up to 150 m, and in the mountains of California up to 120 m (Salzer et al, 2014). These data show that the temperature in these regions was generally warmer than in the pre-industrial period by 1.1 to >4 C.…”

“…The Altai Mountains are located at the margins of the Central Asian mountain system in the continental temperature climate. In the early Holocene, from at least 10.4 ka (Nazarov et al, 2012), the glaciers were probably smaller than they are at present. Although there is no direct evidence of glacier status in the early Holocene, the paleoclimatic reconstructions based on stratigraphic evidence (Butvilovsky, 1993) and the 14 C dating of wood macrofossils above the modern tree line (Agatova et al, 2012) provide evidence that the climate was generally warmer than today between 10.4 ka and 5.0 ka.…”

“…the Arctic amplification including sea ice expansion in the NH; Miller et al, 2013) were probably contributing. The retreats between the Neoglacial advances were in most cases moderate and the retreated glaciers did not reach the modern limits, although some exceptions of very pronounced retreats are recorded in the Alps (Holzhauser et al, 2005), and in the Altai (Nazarov et al, 2012) between 3 ka and 2 ka, in Scandinavia in the first millennium CE (Nesje et al, 2011), and between ca 3 ka and ca 1.5 ka in Nepal (Gayer et al, 2006). The magnitude of the advances tends to increase over time and in some areas (Western Canada, Spitsbergen, Greenland) the largest advances occurred in the middle or to the end of the 19th century, or even later, in the early 20th century, as one might expect if orbital forcing was the only factor driving glacier fluctuations.…”

“…The exception discussed above is the Asian monsoon glaciers with their opposite trend of changes from large ice masses in the early Holocene to smaller ones in recent time. The temperature stack in the (Hantemirov and Shiyatov, 2002), Swedish Scandes (Oeberg and Kullman, 2011), Canadian Cordillera (Luckman, 1986;Osborn and Luckman, 1988;Reasoner et al, 2001;Koch et al, 2004;Menounos et al, 2004;Clague et al, 2009), White Mountains (1) and Snake Range (2), California (Salzer et al, 2014), Alps (Holzhauser et al, 2005;Ivy-Ochs et al, 2009), Altai (Nazarov et al, 2012). low latitude (30 Ne30 S) shows a very small positive gradient of less than 1 C since 11.5 ka (Marcott et al, 2013).…”

Holocene Environmental Change in South-East Altai Evidenced by Soil Record

“…Paleoenvironmental changes in the Russian Altai in the end of the Late Pleistocene and Holocene have been studied using different proxy records and indicators, such as pollen, diatoms, and chironomids in lake sediments, landforms and lithostratigraphy of glacial, lacustrine, and fluvial deposits (Butvilovskij 1993;Rudoy and Baker 1993;Westover et al 2006;Blyakharchuk et al 2007;Ilyashuk and Ilyashuk 2007;Carling et al 2011;Nazarov et al 2012;Agatova et al 2012, 2015 andmany others). At the same time research on Holocene paleosol records of the region are few in number (Dergacheva et al 2006;Dergacheva et al 2007;Agatova et al 2016;Bronnikova et al 2017Bronnikova et al , 2018 As far as the Altai is the ultracontinental mountain area with strongly differentiated climatic and landscape conditions, environmental changes here are not only time-, but also strongly space-dependent.…”