Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 12
Researches of Field Evidence for Late
Quaternary Climate Changes in the Highest
Mountains of Bulgaria
Emil Gachev
Abstract
Bulgarian highest mountains Rila (2,925 m a. s. l.) and Pirin (2,914
m a. s. l.) provide sets of relatively well-preserved glacial landforms from late
Pleistocene and Holocene cold phases, several small recent perennial ice features
and still well-preserved forest ecosystems at the tree limit that can serve as a source
for valuable environmental records. Results of our latest studies show that in Rila
valley glaciers reached their largest extent during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM)
stage (23,000-19,000 year BP), when the Equilibrium line altitude of the glaciers
was at around 2,150-2,250 m a. s. l. and the longest glacier tongues went down
to 1,150-1,200 m a. s. l. There were also found and described traces from several
stages of glacier retreat. Another important aspect of environmental change consists
of the observation of current environmental phenomena in order to evaluate local
climate change during the last decades and at present. This chapter presents some
results of research efforts in this field, which have been achieved up to now. One of
the aims of this chapter is to propose incorporation of high-mountain environmental
change researches from all the interested Balkan countries in a network for regional
studies and modelling, and, if possible, to establish a workgroup dedicated to this
topic.
Keywords
Global change
·
High mountains
·
Field indicators
12.1 Introduction
Global climate change has recently appeared to be probably the most debated
problem not only among scientific community but also among whole civil soci-
ety at planetary scale. As a result, environmental reconstructions registered a rapid
progress during the last several years. Although there have been developed whole
sets of global climate models and scenarios concerning various past and also future
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