Pubinar addresses winter climate change and glacier activity
October 16, 2019
![Same info as announcement. Design appears to be closeup of some ice.](https://uaf.edu/news/archives/wordpress-images/vfb/2019/10/WERCseminar-10.18.19-500x281.jpg)
Ben Gaglioti will present "Winter climate change and glacier activity over the last
500 years in the Northeast Pacific."
Abstract: The strength of the wintertime Aleutian Low pressure system (AL) in the
North Pacific affects the severity of drought in the Western US and the size of salmon
runs in Alaska. Unfortunately, our long-term understanding of how the AL interacts
with global climate has been limited by the fact that most paleoclimate indicators
are blind to cold season conditions. In this talk, I will present a 500-year winter-sensitive
record of the AL based on the architecture, wood morphology and ring widths of sub-alpine
trees growing along remote reaches of the Northeast Pacific coast. Results show that,
similar to its behavior in the last century, the AL shifted between strong and weak
phases every few decades back to at least AD 1500. The most striking feature of this
record is that the duration of these strong-weak regimes suddenly became two to three
times longer ca. AD 1700, a change that was accompanied by stormier conditions in
Southeast Alaska. This discovery warrants further investigation because a similar
change in AL regime duration in the future could impact the year-to-year availability
of AL-affected resources that society now relies on. I will close the talk by using
this new winter climate record to discuss how changing seasonality affected the timing
and extent Little Ice Age glacier advances in coastal Alaska.
Attendees must be 21 or older to enter the Pub. The event is co-sponsored by the Water
Environmental Research Center and the Institute of Northern Engineering. Please contact
Nicole Misarti for more information at nmisarti@alaska.edu.