Open AccessClimate change and ‘anomalous' glacier fluctuations: the southwest outlets of Mrdalsjökull, Iceland
Author(s) -
CASELY ANDREW F.,
DUGMORE ANDREW J.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
boreas
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.95
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1502-3885
pISSN - 0300-9483
DOI - 10.1111/j.1502-3885.2004.tb01133.x
Subject(s) - glacier , geology , tephrochronology , physical geography , glacial period , climate change , glacier morphology , tidewater glacier cycle , glacier mass balance , climatology , ice core , cryosphere , geomorphology , ice stream , oceanography , geography , paleontology , tephra , volcano , sea ice , pregnancy , lactation , genetics , ice calving , biology
Evidence of past glacier fluctuations is valuable palaeoenvironmental data, but determining their relationship to climatic change is sometimes complex because of differing glacier sensitivities and patterns of response. In Iceland, a diverse range of glaciation creates changing geographical patterns of response to climatic changes. The outlet glaciers of the Márdalsjökull ice cap in southern Iceland have produced detailed, but differing, records of change. For a key southwestern sector of the ice cap, we specifically searched for evidence equivalent to the c . 4500 BP, c . 3100 BP and c . 1200 BP advances of Sólheimajökull reported earlier. A combination of geomorphological mapping and dating by tephrochronology and lichenometry was used to constrain the glacier advances and determine the relative magnitude of Neoglacial glacier episodes. This is a key step towards creating a record of the changes for the entire ice cap. Major glacier advances c . 4500–1000 BP previously identified on the southern margin of Márdalsjökull are shown not to have occurred in this sector, where Neoglacial maxima occur post‐1755 AD.