Late Holocene Glacier fluctuations in southernmost Patagonia.

Documenting past climate dynamics aids in our understanding of the climate system. In order to assess future climate change it is valuable to examine the connectivity of climatic phenomena between hemispheres. Although studies that estimate past climate fluctuations are common in the Northern Hemisphere, fewer well-constrained glacier chronologies exist in the Southern Hemisphere. The assessment of past glacier activity remains the most direct method of creating a climatic record for a region, and the comparison of these glacial chronologies tests the synchronicity of climatic change between regions. This study investigates inter-hemispheric synchronicity by developing a detailed glacier history in southern Patagonia for comparison to robust glacier chronologies from the northwestern North America. Five Neoglacial advances of Stoppani Glacier in the Cordillera Darwin of southern Patagonia broadly correspond to the Neoglacial activity documented in northwestern North America. This Stoppani Glacier chronology is based on radiocarbon-dated detrital and in situ plant material contained within the northeastern lateral moraine stratigraphy. The age range from dated plant material records the first Neoglacial expansion of Stoppani Glacier which, overlaps with the end of the 4.2 ka Advance' reported throughout northwestern North America. Stoppani Glacier advanced multiple times between 3500-1900 cal yr BP which overlaps with the 'Peyto-Tiedemann Advance' documented in northwestern North America. The lacustrine record from nearby Lago Roca also suggests that local sea level lowered during the 3500-1900 cal yr BP period, resulting in the isolation of the lake from the Beagle Channel ca. 2300 cal yr BP. Plant material from within till at Stoppani Glacier and lacustrine sediments from Lago Roca yield an age range for the last advance of glaciers in the Cordillera Darwin the range coincides with the end of the wide-spread Little Ice Age Advance' documented throughout northwestern North