Collaborative Research: Climate controls on the formation of tropical glacier moraines in the Rwenzori Mountains, Uganda-Congo

合作研究：乌干达-刚果鲁文佐里山脉热带冰川冰碛形成的气候控制

• 批准号: 1222705
• 负责人: Meredith Kelly
• 金额: $ 4.01万
• 依托单位: Dartmouth College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-09-01 至 2015-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1222705&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Climate; controls; formation

Collaborative Research: Climate controls on the formation of tropical glacier moraines in the Rwenzori Mountains, Uganda-CongoGlaciers on the world's high tropical mountains are among the most sensitive components of the Earth's climate system. The current melting of these glaciers is a spectacular example of anthropogenic climate change. However, tropical glaciers are strongly sensitive to precipitation, humidity, and various other climate processes, not just air temperature. A major objective of glaciology and climate research is thus to understand the responses of tropical glaciers to climate change, and to evaluate which aspects of past climate change control glacier advance and retreat. This project seeks to test whether changes in temperature control the behavior of tropical mountain glaciers by reconstructing past temperature changes and glacier movement in the Rwenzori Mountains, Uganda-Congo. Specifically we will generate new records of glacier advance by dating glacier moraine deposits using cosmogenic radinulides, generate a new temperature record based from lake sediment cores, and compare the timing of periods of cooling with the timing of glacier advances. The Rwenzori Mountains host the most extensive glacier and moraine systems in Africa, but there are virtually no direct dates to constrain the age of past glaciations. Moreover, there are virtually no quantitative temperature reconstructions from tropical African mountains derived independently of glacial mass balance estimates. Our work will provide new insight into the timing of major glaciations, glacier sensitivity, and temperature changes in tropical Africa, where few such chronologies exist, and will elucidate the climate processes that control tropical glacier dynamics.

协作研究：关于卢旺达山脉热带冰川冰ora的形成的气候控制，世界高热带山脉上的乌干达 - 古怪沟通者是地球气候系统中最敏感的组成部分之一。这些冰川的当前熔化是人为气候变化的壮观例子。 但是，热带冰川对降水，湿度和其他各种气候过程非常敏感，而不仅仅是空气温度。因此，冰川学和气候研究的一个主要目标是了解热带冰川对气候变化的反应，并评估过去气候变化控制冰川的哪些方面。 该项目旨在测试温度变化是否通过重建过去温度变化和乌干达 - 哥戈山脉的冰川运动来控制热带山地冰川的行为。 具体而言，我们将通过使用宇宙基因的冰川岩质约会冰川沉积物来生成冰川进步的新记录，从而产生基于湖泊沉积物核心的新温度记录，并将冷却时期的时期与冰川进步的时间进行比较。 Rwenzori山脉在非洲拥有最广泛的冰川和冰ora系统，但几乎没有直接日期来限制过去冰川的年龄。此外，几乎没有来自热带非洲山脉的定量温度重建，独立于冰川质量平衡估计。 我们的工作将为非洲热带非洲的主要冰川，冰川敏感性和温度变化的时机提供新的见解，那里很少存在这样的时间，并将阐明控制热带冰川动力学的气候过程。