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Quantifying glacial erosion contributes to our understanding of landscape evolution and topographic relief production in high altitude and high latitude areas. Combining in situ10Be and 26Al analysis of bedrock, boulder, and river sand samples, geomorphological mapping, and field investigations, we examine glacial erosion patterns of former ice caps in the Shaluli Shan of the southeastern Tibetan Plateau. The general landform pattern shows a zonal pattern of landscape modification produced by ice caps of up to 4000 km2 during pre‐LGM (Last Glacial Maximum) glaciations, while the dating results and landforms on the plateau surface imply that the LGM ice cap further modified the scoured terrain into different zones. Modeled glacial erosion depth of 0–0.38 m per 100 ka bedrock sample located close to the western margin of the LGM ice cap, indicates limited erosion prior to LGM and Late Glacial moraine deposition. A strong erosion zone exists proximal to the LGM ice cap marginal zone, indicated by modeled glacial erosion depth >2.23 m per 100 ka from bedrock samples. Modeled glacial erosion depths of 0–1.77 m per 100 ka from samples collected along the edge of a central upland, confirm the presence of a zone of intermediate erosion in‐between the central upland and the strong erosion zone. Significant nuclide inheritance in river sand samples from basins on the scoured plateau surface also indicate restricted glacial erosion during the last glaciation. Our study, for the first time, shows clear evidence for preservation of glacial landforms formed during previous glaciations under non‐erosive ice on the Tibetan Plateau. As patterns of glacial erosion intensity are largely driven by the basal thermal regime, our results confirm earlier inferences from geomorphology for a concentric basal thermal pattern for the Haizishan ice cap during the LGM. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. We apply 10Be and 26Al exposure dating from bedrock, erratics and river sediments to tell the erosional efficiency of ice caps that covered the Haizishan Plateau. These ice caps in southeastern Tibetan Plateau had a concentric basal thermal regime, including areas of deposition, strong‐ and intermediate erosion, and of preservation under non‐erosive ice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To better assess the spatiotemporal variations of the snow shielding effect on surface exposure dating, we compiled a dataset of 1341 10Be ages from alpine moraines and glacially eroded valleys across western North America, and conducted a sensitivity test with both modern and time-integrated snow data covering the same region. Our analyses reveal significant differences in snow shielding both across our geographic domain and through time. In our time-integrated experiments we find snow-based exposure age corrections as low as 3.5% in the Great Basin region and high as 28.4% in the Pacific Northwest for samples dating to the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) when no wind-sweeping is assumed. As demonstrated with our time-varying snow conditions with a global climate model and a positive degree day model, modern snow conditions across western North America cannot account for the varying snow patterns under large scale climate shifts since the LGM. The snow-based exposure age corrections from the modern data differ from those calculated by our time-varying model by up to 17% across our model domain. In addition, we find that the 10Be ages calculated under two end-member scenarios regarding wind-sweeping effects, specifically whether boulders were shielded only when the total snow accumulation exceeded boulder heights or were always shielded when the snow was present, can differ by ∼7.6% on average for LGM aged samples. Our analyses provide a model-based estimates of the spatiotemporal variability and complexity of snow shielding effects on surface exposure dates across western North America and highlight the need to consider snow depth variations both spatially and temporally when conducting surface exposure dating in terrains where snowfall accumulation is significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: During the last glacial maximum (LGM), glaciers existed in scattered mountainous locations in central Europe between the major ice masses of Fennoscandia and the Alps. A positive degree-day glacier mass-balance model is used to constrain paleo-climate conditions associated with reconstructed LGM glacier extents of four central European upland regions: the Vosges Mountains, the Black Forest, the Bavarian Forest, and the Giant Mountains. With reduced precipitation (25–75%), reflecting a drier LGM climate, the modeling yields temperature depressions of 8–15°C. To reproduce past glaciers more severe cooling is required in the west than in the east, indicating a strong west–east temperature anomaly gradient. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The Bayan Har Shan, a prominent upland area in the northeastern sector of the Tibetan Plateau, hosts an extensive glacial geological record. To reconstruct its palaeoglaciology we have determined 10Be exposure ages based on 67 samples from boulders, surface pebbles, and sediment sections in conjunction with studies of the glacial geology (remote sensing and field studies) and numerical glacier modelling. Exposure ages from moraines and glacial sediments in Bayan Har Shan range from 3 ka to 129 ka, with a large disparity in exposure ages for individual sites and within the recognised four morphostratigraphical groups. The exposure age disparity cannot be explained by differences in inheritance without using unrealistic assumptions but it can be explained by differences in post-depositional shielding which produces exposure ages younger than the deglaciation age. We present a palaeoglaciological time-slice reconstruction in which the most restricted glaciation, with glaciers less than 10 km long, occurred before 40–65 ka. More extensive glaciations occurred before 60–100 ka and 95–165 ka. Maximum glaciation is poorly constrained but probably even older. The Bayan Har Shan exposure age dataset indicates that glaciers on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau have remained surprisingly restricted for at least 40 ka, including the global last glacial maximum (LGM). This case of a missing LGM is further supported by high-resolution glacier modelling experiments. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The most recent deglaciation of the North American Ice Sheet Complex (NAISC: comprising the Innuitian, Cordilleran, and Laurentide ice sheets) offers a broad perspective from which to analyze the timing and rate of ice retreat, deglacial sea-level rise, and abrupt climate change events. Previous efforts to portray the retreat of the NAISC have been focused largely on minimum-limiting radiocarbon ages and ice margin location(s) tied to deglacial landforms that were not, for the most part, chronologically constrained. Here, we present the first version of North American Deglaciation Isochrones (NADI-1) spanning 25 to 1 ka in calendar years before present. Key new features of this work are (i) the incorporation of cosmogenic nuclide data, which offer a direct constraint on the timing of ice recession; (ii) presentation of all data and time-steps in calendar years; (iii) optimal, minimum, and maximum ice extents for each time-step that are designed to capture uncertainties in the ice margin position, and; (iv) extensive documentation and justification for the placement of each ice margin. Our data compilation includes 2229 measurements of 10Be, 459 measurements of 26Al and 35 measurements of 36Cl from a variety of settings, including boulders, bedrock surfaces, cobbles, pebbles, and sediments. We also updated a previous radiocarbon dataset (n = 4947), assembled luminescence ages (n = 397) and gathered uranium-series data (n = 2). After scrutiny of the geochronological dataset, we consider >90% of data to be reliable or likely reliable. Key findings include (i) a highly asynchronous maximum glacial extent in North America, occurring as early as 27 ka to as late as 17 ka, within and between ice sheets. In most marine realms, extension of the ice margin to the continental shelf break at 25 ka is somewhat speculative because it is based on undated and spatially scattered ice stream and geomorphic evidence; (ii) detachment of the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets took place gradually via southerly and northerly 'unzipping' of the ice masses, starting at 17.5 ka and ending around 14 ka; (iii) the final deglaciation of Hudson Bay began at 8.5 ka, with the collapse completed by 8 ka. The maximum extent of ice during the last glaciation occurred at 22 ka and covered 15,470,000 km2. All North American ice sheets merged at 22 ka for the first time in the Quaternary. The highly asynchronous Last Glacial Maximum in North America means that our isochrones (starting at 25 ka) capture ice advance across some areas, which is based on limited evidence and is therefore somewhat speculative. In the Supplementary Data, the complete NADI-1 chronology is available in PDF, GIF and shapefile format, together with additional visualizations and spreadsheets of geochronological data. The NADI-1 shapefiles are also available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8161764. • Uncertainties captured in optimal, minimum, and maximum ice extents. • Detailed documentation for the placement of each ice margin. • NADI-1 ice margins available in.shp,.pdf and.gif format for 49 timesteps. • Supplementary Data: additional visualizations, geochronological data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Cordilleran Ice Sheet (CIS) covered most of British Columbia and southern Yukon Territory at the local Last Glacial Maximum (lLGM) during Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage 2. However, its subsequent demise is not well understood, particularly at high elevations east of its ocean-terminating margin. We present 10Be exposure ages from two high-elevation sites in southern and central British Columbia that help constrain the time of initial deglaciation at these sites. We sampled granodiorite erratics at elevations of 2126-2230 m a.s.l. in the Marble Range and 1608-1785 m a.s.l. in the Telkwa Range at the western margin of the Interior Plateau. The erratics at both sites are near ice-marginal meltwater channels that delineate the local ice surface slope and thus the configuration of the ice sheet during deglaciation. The locations of the erratics and their relations to meltwater channels ensure that the resulting 10Be ages date CIS deglaciation and not the retreat of local montane glaciers. Our sample sites emerged above the surface of the CIS as its divide migrated westward from the Interior Plateau to the axis of the Coast Mountains. Two of the four samples from the summit area of the Marble Range yielded apparent exposure ages of 14.0 ± 0.7 and 15.2 ± 0.8 ka. These ages are 1.8-3.0 ka younger than the well-established lLGM age of ca 17 ka for the Puget lobe of the CIS in Washington State; they are 1.7 ka younger than the lLGM age for the Puget lobe if a snow-shielding correction to their uncertainty-weighted mean age is applied. The other two samples yielded much older apparent exposure ages (20.6 ± 1.4 and 33.0 ± 1.5 ka), indicating the presence of inherited isotopes. Four samples collected from the summit area of the Telkwa Range in the Hazelton Mountains yielded well clustered apparent exposure ages of 10.1 ± 0.6, 10.2 ± 0.7, 10.4 ± 0.5, and 11.5 ± 1.1 ka. Significant present-day snow cover introduces a large uncertainty in the apparent exposure ages from this site. A snow-shielding correction based on present-day snow cover data increases the uncertainty-weighted mean exposure age of the Telkwa Range erratics to 12.4 ± 0.7 ka, consistent with deglacial 14C ages from areas near sea level to the west. Our exposure ages show a thinning of the southern portion of the CIS shortly after the lLGM and persistence of a remnant mountain ice cap in the central Coast Mountains into the Younger Dryas Chronozone. Our data also show that the summit area of the Marble Range was ice-covered during the lLGM. The presence of an ice body of considerable dimension in north-central British Columbia until, or possibly even after, the Younger Dryas highlights the need for geomorphological and geochronological studies of the ice dispersal centre over the Skeena Mountains in northwest British Columbia and the need for better understanding of the response of the CIS to Lateglacial climate fluctuations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Reconstructing the paleoglaciation of the Tibetan Plateau is critical to understanding linkages between regional climate changes and global climate changes, and here we focus on the glacial history of the Shaluli Shan, an area of the southeastern Tibetan Plateau that receives much of its precipitation from monsoon flow. Based on field investigation, geomorphological mapping, and 10Be exposure dating of moraines, we identify glacial deposits from the Late Glacial, with minimum ages at 13.0 ± 1.2 –17.1 ± 1.6 ka, global Last Glacial Maximum (gLGM) at 21.6 ± 2.0 ka, and pre-gLGM at 102.3 ± 10.0–183.6 ± 17.0 ka. These ages are consistent with and significantly extend the known range from most prior chronological work using terrestrial cosmogenic nuclides in this area, and include a set of dates for the Kuzhaori moraine that raise questions about prior chronologies based on the electron spin resonance technique. Ice caps about 4000 km2 in size covered the Haizishan Plateau and the Xinlong Plateau during the global LGM, with large glaciers extending far down outlet valleys. The presence of ice cap glaciation, here, contrasts strongly to glaciation elsewhere in the Shaluli Shan and more central regions of the Tibetan Plateau where ice expansion remained constricted to valleys. This work provides important insights into the paleoclimate pattern and monsoon evolution of the Tibetan Plateau over past glacial cycles and indicates that the Shaluli Shan has a glacial chronology more consistent with the Northern Hemisphere paleo-ice sheets than other areas of the Tibetan Plateau. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The Tibetan Plateau is a topographic feature of extraordinary dimension and has an important impact on regional and global climate. However, the glacial history of the Tibetan Plateau is more poorly constrained than that of most other formerly glaciated regions such as in North America and Eurasia. On the basis of some field evidence it has been hypothesized that the Tibetan Plateau was covered by an ice sheet during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Abundant field- and chronological evidence for a predominance of local valley glaciation during the past 300,000 calendar years (that is, 300 ka), coupled to an absence of glacial landforms and sediments in extensive areas of the plateau, now refute this concept. This, furthermore, calls into question previous ice sheet modeling attempts which generally arrive at ice volumes considerably larger than allowed for by field evidence. Surprisingly, the robustness of such numerical ice sheet model results has not been widely queried, despite potentially important climate ramifications. We simulated the growth and decay of ice on the Tibetan Plateau during the last 125 ka in response to a large ensemble of climate forcings (90 members) derived from Global Circulation Models (GCMs), using a similar 3D thermomechanical ice sheet model as employed in previous studies. The numerical results include as extreme end members as an ice-free Tibetan Plateau and a plateau-scale ice sheet comparable, in volume, to the contemporary Greenland ice sheet. We further demonstrate that numerical simulations that acceptably conform to published reconstructions of Quaternary ice extent on the Tibetan Plateau cannot be achieved with the employed stand-alone ice sheet model when merely forced by paleoclimates derived from currently available GCMs. Progress is, however, expected if future investigations employ ice sheet models with higher resolution, bidirectional ice sheet-atmosphere feedbacks, improved treatment of the surface mass balance, and regional climate data and climate reconstructions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]