The European glacial landscapes from the Middle Holocene

Most of the European glaciers were reduced to their minimum extent during the Middle Holocene. They were behind their present-day limits in the Arctic archipelagos, and most likely absent from the British Isles and from many European and Mediterranean mountains, such as Scandinavia, Iceland, the Urals, the Carpathians, the Pyrenees, and the Iberian, Italian and Moroccan mountains. They had a very reduced extension in the Caucasus, the Alps and the Balkans. Consequently, Middle Holocene glacial landforms are rarely observed. The landforms in the interior of the mountain cirques were erased by the glacier advances in the Late Holocene. The evolution of European glaciers is similar to the rest of the mountains of the Northern Hemisphere. The time of the glacier minimum extent is variable throughout the Middle Holocene in each region, in relation to local factors. The behaviour of glaciers in the Southern Hemisphere is also very similar to those in Europe, reaching their minimum extent in some cases in the Early Holocene and in others in the Middle Holocene, although with great variability depending on the precipitation regime in each region. In most regions of both hemispheres, glaciers began to advance from the mid to late Middle Holocene. The difference in the chronology of the Holocene Thermal Maximum depends on the harmonisation between different climatic proxies and local conditions in each region, mainly related to precipitation.