Extracting a Climate Signal from 169 Glacier Records
Abstract
I constructed a temperature history for different parts of the world from 169 glacier length records. Using a first-order theory of glacier dynamics, I related changes in glacier length to changes in temperature. The derived temperature histories are fully independent of proxy and instrumental data used in earlier reconstructions. Moderate global warming started in the middle of the 19th century. The reconstructed warming in the first half of the 20th century is 0.5 kelvin. This warming was notably coherent over the globe. The warming signals from glaciers at low and high elevations appear to be very similar.
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References and Notes
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Climate sensitivity c and response time τ are modeled as c = 2.3P0.6s–1 and τ = 13.6 β–1s–1(1 + 20s)–1/2L–1/2. Here, P is the climatological annual precipitation in m/year, s is the mean surface slope of the glacier, β is the altitudinal mass-balance gradient, and L is the glacier length in the reference case in meters. These formulations were obtained by calibrating a simple model of glacier dynamics [(3), pages 61 and 73] with more explicit numerical modeling of a limited set of glaciers [(3), pages 83 to 92]. Values for P were obtained from climate stations and climate atlases. The balance gradient has been related to P by β = 0.006P1/2 (here P is in m/year).
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I thank all colleagues that helped to collect data, in particular E. J. Klok.
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Science
Volume 308 | Issue 5722
29 April 2005
29 April 2005
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American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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Received: 2 November 2004
Accepted: 18 January 2005
Published in print: 29 April 2005
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