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The absence of memory in the climatic forcing of glaciers

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Abstract

Glaciers respond to both long-term, persistent climate changes as well as the year-to-year variability that is inherent to a constant climate. Distinguishing between these two causes of length change is important for identifying the true climatic cause of past glacier fluctuations. A key step in addressing this is to determine the relative importance of year-to-year variability in climate relative to more persistent climate fluctuations. We address this question for European climate using several long-term observational records: a century-long, Europe-wide atmospheric gridded dataset; longer-term instrumental measurements of summertime temperature where available (up to 250 years); and seasonal and annual records of glacier mass balance (between 30 and 50 years). After linear detrending of the datasets, we find that throughout Europe persistence in both melt-season temperature and annual accumulation is generally indistinguishable from zero. The main exception is in Southern Europe where a degree of interannual persistence can be identified in summertime temperatures. On the basis of this analysis, we conclude that year-to-year variability dominates the natural climate forcing of glacier fluctuations on timescales up to a few centuries.

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Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to Brian Smoliak for his many insights on data acquisition and analyses. E.E.B. acknowledges support received from the NASA Harriett G. Jenkins Predoctoral Fellowship Project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Erin E. Burke & Gerard H. Roe

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  1. Erin E. Burke
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  2. Gerard H. Roe
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Correspondence to Gerard H. Roe.

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Burke, E.E., Roe, G.H. The absence of memory in the climatic forcing of glaciers. Clim Dyn 42, 1335–1346 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-013-1758-0

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