Doctoral Dissertation Research: Analyzing Tropical Alpine Glacier Dynamics During Middle-Holocene Warming

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This doctoral dissertation research project will develop records of past glacier extents in one set of mountains in a tropical setting and will assess the sensitivity of glaciers in this and similar regions to changes in climatic conditions, such as alternate temperature and precipitation regimes. The project will provide new information and insights to address the degree to which alpine tropical glaciers are especially sensitive to changing climatic and other environmental conditions. The study region is one for which previous evidence seemed to indicate that alpine glaciers persisted during the middle of the Holocene Epoch, a period when evidence indicates that temperatures were as warm as or warmer than the present time period. The project helps to assess the sensitivity of these glaciers to warming temperatures in order to better ascertain both the timing and magnitude of past glacier fluctuations. By reconstructing past glacier extents in tropical regions like this, this project will improve basic understanding about the factors and dynamics that affect tropical glaciers as well as their sensitivity to a changing environment. The project also will provide information that will yield more accurate predictions of future glacier mass loss, project findings will facilitate planning and development activities in tropical regions, where glaciers provide crucial freshwater resources and ongoing glacier recession will impact directly the livelihoods and wellbeing of communities. The project will provide additional education and training benefits by engaging undergraduate students in some facets of the project and through presentations based on the project in elementary and secondary school classrooms in Vermont and New Hampshire. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.The ongoing retreat of tropical glaciers has been highlighted as one manifestation of contemporary change in environmental conditions around the Earth, but the sensitivity of these glaciers to projected future climate conditions is uncertain. Through this dissertation research project, the doctoral student will improve the understanding of tropical glacier response to warmer temperatures by determining the extents of glaciers in tropical eastern Africa over a period roughly 8,000 to 4,000 years ago, when the region was as warm as or warmer than at present. The student will use detailed geomorphic mapping and surface exposure dating of glacial deposits in the Rwenzori Mountains to determine glacier extents during the current interglacial period known as the Holocene Epoch, which extends from about 11,600 years ago to the present. She will employ a surface-exposure dating method that relies on measurements of the cosmogenic nuclide beryllium-10, which is produced in rock surfaces over time due to the influx of cosmic rays. The project will be the first study to develop a beryllium-10-based chronology of Holocene glacier extents in tropical eastern Africa. The student will compare the Rwenzori glacier chronology with records of temperature, precipitation, and glacier extents from other locations in tropical East Africa in order to assess the regional climate conditions and patterns of glacier fluctuations. These results will be compared with Holocene glacier extents in tropical South America. Determining whether glaciers across the global tropics fluctuated synchronously or asynchronously during the Holocene Epoch will provides information for evaluating the dynamics associated with changing global climatic conditions. Project results will advance efforts to model glaciers within future warming scenarios, thereby providing a means to test hypotheses about the possible mechanisms that transmitted climate signals across the globe during the Holocene Epoch.