Improving the Holocene glacier chronology of the Southern Alps/New Zealand enabling its reliable utilisation as palaeoclimatic archive

山地冰川是当今气候变化的令人印象深刻的指标，同时也构成了高分辨率的古气候档案。研究全新世冰川波动提供了对其主导气候驱动因素的宝贵见解，对于随后对现代或未来变化的任何评估都不可或缺的知识。对全新世冰川档案的可靠解释及其在全球范围内的相互关系对于理解全球气候动态及其半球和全球相互联系至关重要。除了令人满意的空间多样性外，这还需要可信和有代表性的区域数据集。然而，最近的全球全新世冰川年表汇编显示，只有极少数山区满足了这些要求。现有的不确定性阻碍了山地冰川作为古气候档案的潜力的可持续利用。新西兰的南阿尔卑斯山被认为是南半球研究全新世冰川年代学的罕见的关键地点之一。然而，由于迄今发表的工作的稳健性和代表性方面的缺陷，他们的全新世冰川年代学作为古气候档案的验证利用失败了。与此同时，这一点已经被毫无疑问地认识到了。详细的重新评估显示，以前确定的几次冰川推进需要取消，主要是由于强烈的区域地貌动力学造成的主要地貌不确定因素。因此，新西兰的全新世冰川年代学目前不应与半球或全球尺度的古气候解释一起考虑。现有的不确定性存在着主观干扰/偏见和对首选模式进行不合理调整的重大风险。该项目的主要目的是建立可靠的全新世冰川年代学，应用施密特-哈默暴露年龄测年(SHD)和陆地宇宙成因核素测年(TCND)相结合。所选择的办法尤其允许根据扩大空间多样性这一以往工作的主要弱点来处理和处理具体的区域不确定性。与所选择的方法不同，单靠陆地宇宙成因核素测年不能克服这些缺点。预期的成果是一份可靠的、具有区域代表性的南阿尔卑斯山全新世冰川年代学，这一结果衡量了它们作为有价值的气候档案的潜力。它应该能够结合与区域、半球和全球尺度上的其他冰川区域的相关性进行古气候分析，独立和不受任何预先确定的范例的偏见。

Mountain glaciers are impressive indicators of present climate change and concurrently constitute high-resolution palaeoclimatic archives. Investigating Holocene glacier fluctuations provides valuable insights into their dominating climatic drivers, indispensable knowledge for any subsequent assessment of modern or prediction of future changes. Reliable interpretation of Holocene glacier archives and their correlation on global scale are essential for the understanding of global climate dynamics with their hemispheric and global interconnections. Apart from satisfactory spatial diversity this requires credible and representative regional data sets. Recent global compilations of Holocene glacier chronologies reveal, however, that only for very few mountain regions these requirements are fulfilled. Existing uncertainties prevent a sustainable utilisation of mountain glacier’s potential as palaeoclimatic archives. This constitutes a highly unsatisfactory situation.The Southern Alps of New Zealand’ are considered one of the rare key localities in the Southern Hemisphere for investigating Holocene glacier chronologies. Verified utilisation of their Holocene glacier chronology as palaeoclimatic archive fails, however, due to shortcomings in robustness and representativeness of work published to date. This has meanwhile been recognised beyond all doubt. Detailed reassessment revealed that several previously established glacier advances need to be dismissed, mainly due to major geomorphological uncertainties caused by strong regional morphodynamics. As a result, the Holocene glacier chronology of New Zealand should currently not be considered with palaeoclimatic interpretations on hemispheric or global scales. The existing uncertainties bear a substantial risk of subjective interference/bias and unjustified adjustment to preferred paradigms. Main aim of the proposed project is to establish a reliable Holocene glacier chronology applying Schmidt-hammer exposure-age dating (SHD) in combination with terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide dating (TCND). The selected approach particularly allows, in particular, to address and to tackle the specific regional uncertainties in line with an expansion of spatial diversity, major weakness of previous work. And unlike to chosen approach, terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide dating alone could not overcome these shortcomings. Intended outcome is a reliable and regionally representative Holocene glacier chronology for the Southern Alps, a result measuring up their potential as valuable climate archive. It should enable a palaeoclimatic analysis in combination with correlations to other glacier regions on regional, hemispheric, and global scales independent and unbiased by any predetermined paradigms.