Arctic-Wide Glaciers And Ice Caps Were Absent Or Smaller Than Today From 10,000 To 3000 Years Ago

A new study details how a much warmer climate than today led to the disappearance of glaciers and ice caps during the sub-300 ppm CO2 Early to Middle Holocene. The Arctic’s modern ice extent is among the largest of the last 10,000 years.

Glaciologists Larocca and Axford (2022) have synthesized a comprehensive record of Arctic-wide glaciers and ice caps (GICs) situated near lakes for Greenland, Alaska, Arctic Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia, Svalbard, and the Russian Arctic.

They compared the current volume and extent of GICs to past Holocene periods when they were either 1) smaller than present or 2) absent, with the latter characterizations signifying greater Arctic warmth.

Image Source: Larocca and Axford, 2022

Contrary to the popular view that the modern glacier and ice cap extents are unprecedentedly small or on the verge of disappearing for the first time ever, the authors found more than half the Arctic’s GICs that exist today either did not exist or were smaller than today from 10,000 to 3400 years ago, when atmospheric CO2 ranged between 260 and 270 ppm.

Furthermore, most (“80% or more”) were smaller than today or absent from 7900 to 4500 years ago, which was the peak of this interglacial’s Arctic warmth – multiple degrees Celsius warmer than today.

The following images from the paper document the “Percent of GICs smaller or absent” for each region over the course of the last 10,000 years or more. Notice that between 80% to 100% of GICs were smaller than today or absent from about 8000 and 4000 years ago, and that even the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods had lower GICs extent than today.

The largest glacier and ice cap extent of the Holocene has been realized in the last millennium, suggesting any recession of GICs in the last few centuries is but a partial return to a former period of much greater warmth.

Greenland

“Glaciers were likely absent altogether between ~7.3 and ~1.3 ka”
“Between ~7.9 and 1.6 ka, the ice cap had completely melted away”
“Ice Cap…remained smaller than present between ~9.4 and 0.2 ka”
“North Ice Cap was smaller than present or absent through most of the Holocene from at least ~10.1 ka to ~1850 CE when the ice-cap reached its present-day size”

Alaska and Arctic Canada

“general warmth, diminished, if not entirely ablated glaciers between ~12.2 and 4 ka”
“100% of GICs were smaller than present or absent…between ~9.1 and 4.5 ka”
“at least 60% were smaller than present or absent…between ~8.6 and 2 ka”

Scandinavia

“glacier extent is reported as largest during the last 1000 years”
“the glacier was…absent from the catchment between ~8.6 and 2 ka”
“glaciers were…absent from the catchment between ~10 and 3.1 ka”

Svalbard

“the glacier…was small or had completely melted away between ~9.2 and 3.5 ka and was smaller than present between ~1.4 and 1.2 ka”
“Between ~8.4 and 1 ka…the glacier was smaller or absent”
“the cirque remained free of ice until the LIA [Little Ice Age] or sometime between 0.6 and 0.4 ka”

Iceland

“the ice cap…was absent between ~8.75 and 1 ka”
“Ice Cap…was absent from at least ~9.2 – 2.3 ka”
“an almost 5 kyr long glacier-free period during the early and mid-Holocene”

22 responses to “Arctic-Wide Glaciers And Ice Caps Were Absent Or Smaller Than Today From 10,000 To 3000 Years Ago”

  1. toorightmate

    Gee wizz. Someone might soon home in on the fact that CO2 has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with climate.

    1. Yonason

      Yup.

      It’s like they are just repeating what they are in the habit of saying about climate, without giving it any real thought – almost as if they are preoccupied with some other goal, knowledge of which we aren’t meant to be privy to.

      1. Yonason

        Same for manageable diseases being pitched as deadly pandemics, for which proper treatment is demonized and withheld, in order to mandate useless injections of novel bio-weapons.
        https://www.sgtreport.com/2022/08/tgps-jim-hoft-and-john-burns-interview-dr-robert-malone/

    2. posa

      Read the paper for the spin

      “Our review finds that in the first half of the Holocene, most of the Arctic’s small GICs became significantly reduced or melted away completely in response to summer temperatures that, on average, were only moderately warmer than today. In comparison, future projections of temperature change in the Arctic far exceed estimated early Holocene values in most locations, portending the eventual loss of most of the Arctic’s small GICs.”

      Do the authors really believe this tripe, or was it a necessary concession to get anything published at all?

      And not, throughout the paper Holocene melting is attributed orbital anomalies yet magically somehow these same factors have not in play since 1850… Why?

  2. Yonason

    Same for manageable diseases being pitched as deadly pandemics, for which proper treatment is demonized and withheld, in order to mandate useless injections of novel bio-weapons.
    https://rumble.com/v1hp5g1-tgps-jim-hoft-and-john-burns-interview-dr.-robert-malone.html
    (Too many videos at other link, so it might not be clear which I meant.)

  3. John Hultquist

    They missed an interesting glacier – The Athabaskan in Canada, 160 miles NW of Calgary. It is well documented, so info and photos on the web are easy to find.
    It is an easy location to get to, visit and learn. I visited on a hot summer day in 1970 (or ’71); 52 years ago. I think it has melted about ½ mile since then. Use the “clock” tab to see historical images, not with winter snow cover. 9/2004 is a good choice.
    Google Earth “street view” (actually a hiker-cam, I think; Aug. 2014) allows you to see the landscape.
    Lat/Long – go here: 52.208638, -117.23391

    Highway #93, Icefields Pkwy, shows up (set “eye altitude” to 10 miles)
    When first seen by explorers, the ice crossed the (now) road and was against the cliff to the NE.
    The interesting part is that much of the ice formed after the last glaciation and has been melting for a long time.
    Current stories are all about “climate change” but fail to mention all this was going on before coal, oil, gas, and SUVs were powering modern societies.

  4. oebele bruinsma

    We live apparently in an upside down world: warming is cooling, war is peace, governments are always right and fake news is news etc etc.

    1. Mike

      DOUBLEPLUSEGOODSPEAK George.
      Understand and all will be well.

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