IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v6y2015i1d10.1038_ncomms9059.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Regional and global forcing of glacier retreat during the last deglaciation

Author

Listed:
  • Jeremy D. Shakun

    (Boston College)

  • Peter U. Clark

    (College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University)

  • Feng He

    (College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University
    Center for Climatic Research, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison)

  • Nathaniel A. Lifton

    (Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences and Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University)

  • Zhengyu Liu

    (Center for Climatic Research, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison)

  • Bette L. Otto-Bliesner

    (National Center for Atmospheric Research)

Abstract

The ongoing retreat of glaciers globally is one of the clearest manifestations of recent global warming associated with rising greenhouse gas concentrations. By comparison, the importance of greenhouse gases in driving glacier retreat during the most recent deglaciation, the last major interval of global warming, is unclear due to uncertainties in the timing of retreat around the world. Here we use recently improved cosmogenic-nuclide production-rate calibrations to recalculate the ages of 1,116 glacial boulders from 195 moraines that provide broad coverage of retreat in mid-to-low-latitude regions. This revised history, in conjunction with transient climate model simulations, suggests that while several regional-scale forcings, including insolation, ice sheets and ocean circulation, modulated glacier responses regionally, they are unable to account for global-scale retreat, which is most likely related to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeremy D. Shakun & Peter U. Clark & Feng He & Nathaniel A. Lifton & Zhengyu Liu & Bette L. Otto-Bliesner, 2015. "Regional and global forcing of glacier retreat during the last deglaciation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 6(1), pages 1-7, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms9059
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms9059
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms9059
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/ncomms9059?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Roger C. Creel & Jacqueline Austermann & Robert E. Kopp & Nicole S. Khan & Torsten Albrecht & Jonathan Kingslake, 2024. "Global mean sea level likely higher than present during the holocene," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-14, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms9059. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.