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Shri Ashtapad Maha Tirth - II
1998). Many studies on glacier fluctuations during the late Quaternary were conducted in the Tibetan Plateau and Himalayas and significant progress has been made in recent years, which is attributable to the development of Cosmogenic Radio-Nuclide (CRN) surface exposure and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating (Richards et al., 2000a,b; Owen et al., 2003; Barnard et al., 2004a,b; Owen and Bern, 2005). 1.1 Late Pleistocene glacier fluctuations The idea has been gradually developed that late Quaternary glaciations may have been asynchronous between different regions of the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalaya, and that the maximum expansion of Karakoram and central and western Himalayan glaciers occurred between 70 and 30 ka, corresponding to Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 3 and 4. At the time of the Last Glacial Maximum (MIS 2), glaciers were in a limited expanded state, implying that precipitation (delivered by an active SASM) rather than temperature change was important in controlling glacier fluctuations over the last glacial cycle (Benn and Owen, 1998; Phillips et al., 2000; Richards et al., 2000a,b; Owen et al., 2001, 2002 a,b,c, 2003; Finkel et al., 2003; Zech et al., 2003; Barnard et al., 2004a,b; Owen et al., 2005; Lehmkuhl and Owen, 2005). Recent studies show that in the arid interior regions of the Tibetan Plateau, at the extreme margins of monsoon influence, glaciation was very limited in extent during the last glacial cycle (Lehmkuhl et al., 2002; Yi et al., 2002; Schafer et al., 2002; Owen et al., 2003; Klinge and Lehmkuhl, 2004). This suggests that glaciers beyond the margins of the monsoon influence behaved differently from the monsoon-affected glaciers throughout the Late Quaternary (Owen et al., 2005) 1.2 Late Holocene glacier fluctuations Few studies have been concerned with Holocene glacier fluctuations on the Tibetan Plateau and bordering areas (Wang and Fan, 1987; Zhou et al., 1991; Lehmkuhl, 1997; Owen et al., 2005). Furthermore, only a few studies have concentrated on the comparison of glacier extents between the Little Ice Age (LIA) maximum and the present on the Tibetan Plateau by applying aerial photos, satellite images, topographical maps and derived digital elevation models (Liu et al., 2002a,b; Pu et al., 2002; Wang and Ding, 2002). Little is known about glacier fluctuations in monsoonal temperate glacier areas and their response to climatic change on a centennial timescale in the context of the past two millennia, a period that includes the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and the LIA (Reyes et al., 2006). Reyes et al. (2006) recognized a widespread glacial advance in the first millennium centered at 400-700 AD in Pacific North America by using numerous radiocarbon ages and lichen dates that had not been fully recognized at the time of the pioneering work of Denton and Karlen (1973). This demonstrates the great potential of revealing regional glacier fluctuations and hence regional climate variability on a centennial timescale by compiling a great number of radiocarbon dates and other types of moraine ages. In this paper, we compile glacial geologic data based on radiocarbon ages on buried wood, tree ring evidence, and lichenornetric data from monsoonal temperate glacier region for this period. We then give a general picture of glacier fluctuations of the southern Himalayan region according to previous radiocarbon dating of fossil soils, and finally make a comparison with climate reconstructions for this region during the last two millennia. Late Holocene monsoonal temperate glacier Fluctuations...
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