New publication Age dating and air pollution reconstruction from the Weißseespitze glacier
Two closely interrelated papers including results of 39Ar-ATTA dating of ice from the Weißseespitze summit glacier performed in Heidelberg have recently been published.
The first paper focuses on the age dating and construction of a an age – depth relationship for the glacier based on modeling of the combination of 14C and 39Ar age information. The paper published in January 2026 in the journal Climate of the Past was led by David Wachs, an early career scientist in the Heidelberg ATTA collaboration between the groups of Werner Aeschbach at the Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP) and Markus Oberthaler at Kirchhoff-Institute for Physics (KIP).
The age scale presented in the paper of Wachs and colleagues provided the basis for a record of traces of anthropogenic air pollution from the same ice core dating back to times of the Roman Empire. This record was published in March 2026 in the journal Frontiers of Earth Science, led by Azzurra Spagnesi from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice in Italy. The journal issued a regarding this paper, highlighting the fact that we are in a race against time to save such records from Alpine ice cores. Glaciers such as the one on Weißseespitze are rapidly melting in the current times of global warming. The picture of Weißseespitze taken by the senior co-author Andrea Fischer from Innsbruck in 2023 shows dark surfaces that are a sign of strong melting.
References:
Spagnesi, A., D. Wachs, P. Bohleber, E. Barbaro, M. Feltracco, D. Festi, K. Oeggl, J. Gabrieli, W. Aeschbach, M. Oberthaler, M. Stocker-Waldhuber, A. Gambaro, C. Barbante, and A. Fischer, 2026. New chemical signatures from Weißseespitze ice cores (Eastern Alps): pre-industrial pollution traces from Roman Empire to early modern period. Front. Earth Sci. 14: 1680019.
Wachs, D., A. Spagnesi, P. Bohleber, A. Fischer, M. Stocker-Waldhuber, A. Junkermann, C. Kindermann, L. Langenbacher, N. Mandaric, J. Marks, F. Meienburg, T. M. Jenk, M. K. Oberthaler, and W. Aeschbach, 2026. A continuous 6000 a age depth relationship for the remainder of the Weißseespitze summit glacier based on 39Ar and 14C dating. Clim. Past 22: 173–185.