Late Holocene record of subantarctic glacier variability in Table Fjord, Cook Ice Cap, Kerguelen Islands

Léo Chassiot*, Emmanuel Chapron, Elisabeth Michel, Vincent Jomelli, Vincent Favier, Deborah Verfaillie, Anthony Foucher, Joanna Charton, Martine Paterne, Nathalie Van der Putten

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

The subantarctic islands between 40 and 60°S are circum-polar landmasses influenced by the southern westerly wind (SWW) belt whose latitudinal shifts are driven by the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) over decadal timescales. In the Indian sector of the Southern Ocean, the Kerguelen Islands (49°S) form a volcanic archipelago that is home to the Cook Ice Cap (CIC). Atmospheric drying favored by a poleward migration of the SWW induced a dramatic shrinkage of the CIC over the past 50 years. Current knowledge of how this decline compares with the natural variability of the CIC is unclear and based exclusively on geomorphological records with limited temporal resolution. This paper introduces a 4 kyr marine record built from a transect of giant piston cores collected in Table Fjord, southwestern margin of the CIC. Interpretation of sedimentary and geochemical proxies is supported by statistical correlations with the CIC surface mass balance on the instrumental timescale, and by the age overlapping with dated landforms and deposits over the last two millennia. High-resolution geochronological data (137Cs and 210Pb inventories along with 63 AMS 14C dates) corrected from a local marine reservoir age allowed reconstructing glacier variability at a multidecadal resolution. The CIC was paced by periods of glacial advances at 3.4–2.8, 2.3–1.7, and 1.35–1.15 ka cal BP, followed by a two-stage ‘Little Ice Age’ maximum between 0.7 ka cal BP and the early 20th century. Comparison with paleoenvironmental records from the subantarctic fringe zone and the southern mid-latitudes suggests SWW-driven precipitation (wetter and windier conditions) were the main driver of centennial-scale glacier variability in the Kerguelen Islands, notably after 2.3 ka cal BP. The Kerguelen record thereby supports a zonally-synchronous, hemispheric-wide SWW pattern pacing Southern Ocean climatic variability in a SAM-like mode. The Little Ice Age maximum ice extent results from the coincidence of cold conditions caused by an equatorward shift of the Polar Front, an oceanic front bordering the Kerguelen archipelago resulting in lower sea surface temperatures, together with wetter conditions favored by strengthened SWW.

Original languageEnglish
Article number108980
Pages (from-to)1-16
Number of pages16
JournalQuaternary Science Reviews
Volume344
Early online date28 Sept 2024
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Nov 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024

Funding

The authors thank the M/D team members for the work during cruise missions, as well as IPEV and IFREMER for logistical and operational support. The authors thank the LMC14 (Laboratoire de Mesure du Carbone 14) staff, ARTEMIS national facility (LSCE (CNRS-CEA-UVSQ)-IRD-IRSN-MC) for the results obtained with the AMS method. Patrick Alb\u00E9ric (CNRS-ISTO) is thanked for Rock-Eval pyrolysis data. Xavier Crosta (CNRS-EPOC) is acknowledged for fruitful discussions on an early version of the manuscript. Special thanks are owed to Pierre Francus (INRS-ETE) and Patrick Lajeunesse (Universit\u00E9 Laval) for their financial support to LC during the writing process. The manuscript benefited from the comments of two anonymous reviewers and associate editor Giovanni Zanchetta.

FundersFunder number
CNRS-ISTO
CNRS-EPOC
Institut français de recherche pour l'exploitation de la mer
CNRS-CEA-UVSQ
IRD-IRSN-MC
Institut Polaire Français Paul Emile Victor
Université Laval

    Keywords

    • Glacial variability
    • South Indian Ocean
    • Southern Annular Mode
    • Southern hemisphere
    • Subantarctic fjord

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