Are insolation and sunspot activity the primary drivers of Holocene glacier fluctuations?

Recent research has documented significant, rapid fluctuations of climate throughout the Holocene (Masson et al., 2000; Bond et al., 2001; Mayewski et al., 2004; Jackson et al., 2005; Willard et al., 2005). One of the sources of proxy paleoenvironmental information that has long been used to document Holocene climate variability is alpine glacier fluctuations (e.g., Denton and Karlen, 1973). Most alpine glaciers react rapidly to changes in their mass balance and thus to changes in temperature and precipitation, and studies of past glacier fluctuations allow reconstruction of climate variability on centennial and decadal timescales. We have compiled evidence for Holocene glacier fluctuations in western Canada and compared this data set with global data on Holocene glacier fluctuations. Our objective is to evaluate the hypothesis that Holocene alpine glacier fluctuations are driven by changes in solar irradiance.