TY - JOUR T1 - Age of the Mt. Ortles ice cores, the Tyrolean Iceman and glaciation of the highest summit of South Tyrol since the Northern Hemisphere Climatic Optimum JF - The Cryosphere Y1 - 2016 A1 - Gabrielli, Paolo A1 - Barbante, Carlo A1 - Bertagna, Giuliano A1 - ó, Michele A1 - Binder, Daniel A1 - Carton, Alberto A1 - Carturan, Luca A1 - Cazorzi, Federico A1 - Cozzi, Giulio A1 - Dalla Fontana, Giancarlo A1 - Davis, Mary A1 - De Blasi, Fabrizio A1 - Dinale, Roberto A1 - à, Gianfranco A1 - Dreossi, Giuliano A1 - Festi, Daniela A1 - Frezzotti, Massimo A1 - Gabrieli, Jacopo A1 - Galos, Stephan P. A1 - Ginot, Patrick A1 - Heidenwolf, Petra A1 - Jenk, Theo M. A1 - Kehrwald, Natalie A1 - Kenny, Donald A1 - Magand, Olivier A1 - Mair, Volkmar A1 - Mikhalenko, Vladimir A1 - Lin, Ping Nan A1 - Oeggl, Klaus A1 - Piffer, Gianni A1 - Rinaldi, Mirko A1 - Schotterer, Ulrich A1 - Schwikowski, Margit A1 - Seppi, Roberto A1 - Spolaor, Andrea A1 - Stenni, Barbara A1 - Tonidandel, David A1 - Uglietti, Chiara A1 - Zagorodnov, Victor A1 - Zanoner, Thomas A1 - Zennaro, Piero AB - In 2011 four ice cores were extracted from the summit of Alto dell’Ortles (3859 m), the highest glacier of South Tyrol in the Italian Alps. This drilling site is located only 37 km southwest from where the Tyrolean Iceman, ∼5.3 kyrs old, was discovered emerging from the ablating ice field of Tisenjoch (3210 m, near the Italian–Austrian border) in 1991. The excellent preservation of this mummy suggested that the Tyrolean Iceman was continuously embedded in prehistoric ice and that additional ancient ice was likely preserved elsewhere in South Tyrol. Dating of the ice cores from Alto dell’Ortles based on 210Pb, tritium, beta activity and 14C determinations, combined with an empirical model (COPRA), provides evidence for a chronologically ordered ice stratigraphy from the modern glacier surface down to the bottom ice layers with an age of ∼7 kyrs, which confirms the hypothesis. Our results indicate that the drilling site has continuously been glaciated on frozen bedrock since ∼7 kyrs BP. Absence of older ice on the highest glacier of South Tyrol is consistent with the removal of basal ice from bedrock during the Northern Hemisphere Climatic Optimum (6–9 kyrs BP), the warmest interval in the European Alps during the Holocene. Borehole inclinometric measurements of the current glacier flow combined with surface ground penetration radar (GPR) measurements indicate that, due to the sustained atmospheric warming since the 1980s, an acceleration of the glacier Alto dell’Ortles flow has just recently begun. Given the stratigraphic chronological continuity of the Mt. Ortles cores over millennia, it can be argued that this behaviour has been unprecedented at this location since the Northern Hemisphere Climatic Optimum. VL - 10 UR - http://www.the-cryosphere.net/10/2779/2016/tc-10-2779-2016.pdf IS - 6 ER -