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Earth Paleoenvironments: Records Preserved in Mid- and Low-Latitude Glaciers pp 121–143Cite as

Glacier Research in Mainland Scandinavia

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Part of the book series: Developments in Paleoenvironmental Research ((DPER,volume 9))

Conclusions

The mass balance and associated work on Scandinavian glaciers is probably as extensive as anywhere in the world. The utility of these glacio-climatic records plus glacial chronological investigations allows not only comparisons from different climatic conditions in Scandinavia but testing of models of behaviour. Such models may relate to the behaviour of the glacier flow itself as perturbed by mass balance changes or they may be ways of modelling the mass balance itself in terms of meteorological/climatic parameters. All such modelling relies upon good field data and the papers reviewed briefly above show the importance of the longevity as well as quality of the Scandinavian data sets. With new techniques being added to the glaciological armoury and the ability to use them on an increasingly diverse range of glaciers, both spatially and with respect to size, the Scandinavian glaciers will remain a most important means of elucidating both past and future climate change.

Furthermore, it is now becoming evident that the wide range of various ‘proxy’ data from both terrestrial and oceanic sources is also becoming better integrated with the mass balance data and the modelling of climate change. The glaciers of Scandinavia, by their nature, do not provide good ice-core records which go well back in time but the quality data which the glaciers do preserve in moraines, historical records as well as mass balance and snout retreat data for the last 150 years will continue to be important in elucidating climate change and climate variability.

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Authors
  1. W. Brian Whalley
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. U.S. Geological Survey, Idaho Falls, USA

    L. DeWayne Cecil

  2. Garden City Community College, Kansas, USA

    Jaromy R. Green

  3. The Ohio State University, Ohio, USA

    Lonnie G. Thompson

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© 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers

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Whalley, W.B. (2004). Glacier Research in Mainland Scandinavia. In: DeWayne Cecil, L., Green, J.R., Thompson, L.G. (eds) Earth Paleoenvironments: Records Preserved in Mid- and Low-Latitude Glaciers. Developments in Paleoenvironmental Research, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-2146-1_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-2146-1_7

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