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Evidence from the Archives of Societies: Historical Sources in Glaciology

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Abstract

Glaciers have been recognized as key indicators of climate change. To assess the current decline in glaciers worldwide, their changes must be compared with natural glacier fluctuations since the end of the last ice age. To reconstruct glacier changes over recent centuries, historical methods have proven especially valuable. Pictorial and cartographical documents as well as written accounts can provide a detailed picture of glacier fluctuations, in particular frontal length changes.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Orlove et al., 2008; Carey, 2010.

  2. 2.

    Zumbühl, 1980; Nussbaumer et al., 2007; Holzhauser, 2010.

  3. 3.

    An illustrative example is the exact oil painting of the Lower Grindelwald Glacier by Joseph Anton Koch, signed and dated in 1823. This artwork was initially misinterpreted, but Zumbühl (1980) could provide evidence that it is based on an original watercolour, drawn by Koch in the field in 1794. The oil painting, made twenty-nine years later in Rome, shows the glacier extent from 1794 (a reduced extent compared with 1823, when the glacier was strongly advancing), but in the foreground we can identify Mediterranean vegetation.

  4. 4.

    Zumbühl and Holzhauser, 1988.

  5. 5.

    Zumbühl, 2009; Nussbaumer et al., 2012.

  6. 6.

    Le Roy Ladurie, 1967.

  7. 7.

    Nicolussi, 1990.

  8. 8.

    Zumbühl, 1980; Zumbühl et al., 1983; Nussbaumer et al., 2007.

  9. 9.

    Holzhauser et al., 2005; Le Roy et al., 2015.

  10. 10.

    Zumbühl et al., 2016.

  11. 11.

    Nussbaumer et al., 2011; Hannesdóttir et al., 2015.

  12. 12.

    Grove, 2004.

  13. 13.

    Araneda et al., 2009; Purdie et al., 2014.

  14. 14.

    WGMS, 2017.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Samuel U. Nussbaumer

  2. Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland

    Samuel U. Nussbaumer

  3. Institute of Geography, Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Heinz J. Zumbühl

Authors
  1. Samuel U. Nussbaumer
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  2. Heinz J. Zumbühl
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    Sam White

  2. Institute of History, Oeschger Centre for Climate Change, Bern, Switzerland

    Christian Pfister

  3. Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

    Franz Mauelshagen

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Nussbaumer, S.U., Zumbühl, H.J. (2018). Evidence from the Archives of Societies: Historical Sources in Glaciology. In: White, S., Pfister, C., Mauelshagen, F. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_8

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  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-43019-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-43020-5

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