The ‘Little Ice Age’ advance of Nigardsbreen,Norway: A cross-disciplinary revision of the chronological framework

(A) c. 1596–1670 CE: Poor living conditions

The oldest settlement in Jostedalen likely dates to 600–1000 CE when population growth and settlement expansion followed the start of the Viking Era. Areas marginally prone for cultivation and crop growth were settled at this time. The medieval society of Jostedalen disappeared at one point after the Black Death in 1349 CE, and the valley held no permanent settlement until the second half of the 1500s. Contemporary population growth and increased need of agricultural land led to a re-population of many formerly abandoned villages. In addition, tax deductions from the royal Head of State stimulated this process furthermore (Espe et al., 2002; Hoel, 2013; Øyane, 1994).

The oldest documentation of permanent settlement in Jostedalen after the Dark Ages is a tax list dated to c. 1596 CE (Johannessen, 2000: 161–162), revealing the tax load for the 25 farmers. As there were too few, and too poor, farmers to sustain the vicar, the bishop and the seignory of Bergen initiated support from other churches in the county to aid grain for the vicar in Jostedalen from the early 1600s. Several documents from this arrangement shed light on the ambient climatic conditions in Jostedalen. The vicar tax list from c. 1596 notes grain damage induced by frost (Johannessen, 2000). Deteriorating harvests are described in electoral rolls from 1616–17 and the two consecutive years (Tax, 1615–1618). Electoral rolls for 1620–21, 1626–27 and 1627–28 mention that most of the then 23 farmers in Jostedalen were poor without mentioning the cause (Tax, 1620). Increased tax claims throughout the 1620s and introduction of a new national tax in 1628–1629 resulted in tax payment issues, and 12 out of 25 farmers paid less tax than imposed that year (Tax, 1629a). In 1630, five of the farmers were unable to pay any taxes, but poverty and impoverishment were the only causes mentioned (Tax, 1629b). Two letters from 1636 on the hardship of the vicar in Jostedalen state that the entire village was embossed by hunger and poverty but does not explain why (Document, 1636a, 1636b). Assessing the information from written sources between c. 1596–1636 that touch mostly upon hunger, poverty, and impoverishment, there are examples of climatic conditions being referred to, but the glaciers are not directly commented on.

From 1655 and the 1660s, there are several documents concerning the vicar’s living conditions that further give insight into contemporary climate. In a complaint dated 1655 CE, the farmers in Jostedalen advocate for their vicar (Document, 1655), and this is the first known document referring to large amounts of winter precipitation. Between 1664–67 there are three written complaints by parish priest Tøger Jenssen (Document, 1664a, 1664b, 1667). In the first document, he complains of crops freezing, and in the second document dated the same year, he adds that the prolonged snow cover and cold weather causes hunger and poverty. The letter from 1667 is mostly expressed in a similar matter. Common for all three documents is that they point to frost as the main problem for crops. Long winters are also noted, and in the 1650s and 60s the documents start mentioning large amounts of snowfall. The glaciers, however, are not referred to. If the glaciers at this time had started creating difficulties for agriculture, it would likely have been mentioned as these letters and documents are otherwise quite straightforward when it comes to complaining about difficult conditions for farming. Later, in the 1740s (see below), the advancing glaciers were an efficient argument regarding tax levels.

(B) c. 1680–1740: Documented avalanches and advancing glaciers

Until 1680 CE, frost is acknowledged as the main problem, with snow as an additional issue. Since the 1680s, however, several documents shed light on the consequences of the deteriorating climate. A new church building was completed in 1660 CE, but only 20 years later the church was damaged by the first historically documented avalanche in Jostedalen (Document, 1681; Øvregard et al., 2010). The church records date back to 1631 CE, so it is unlikely that something similar had happened the previous 50 years. At the same time, the glaciers in Krundalen advanced to such a degree that farmers in Grov and Bergset (Figure 1) were affected, an issue the proprietor Birgitte Munthe had brought up on behalf of Jostedalen and Luster at the local court in November 1684 (Document, 1684). There she stated that one farmer, Knut Grov, had lost his highland pastures to the glacier. Likewise, the mountain farm area in Bergsetdalen valley was ruined, probably by both Vetledalsbreen in the southern part and by Bergsetbreen in the central part of the valley (Figure 1). This document is well-known from LIA literature (Eide, 1955; Grove, 2004; Grove and Battagel, 1983; Laberg, 1944), and is acknowledged as the earliest reliable evidence of direct damage of productive agricultural area (likely damaging grazing- and hayfields) in Scandinavia (Grove, 2004). After the arraignment at the local court, the Grov and Bergset farmers were designated summer pastures in the more distant valleys Geisdalen and Vanndalen on the eastern side of Jostedalen (Figure 1).

Formerly overlooked in the abovementioned document from 1684, are notes from the proprietor’s son, Ludvig Munthe, on flood damage at both Sperla (south of the parsonage) and Flatejordi (at the mouth of Krundalen; Figure 1), a natural hazard which could indicate large amounts of snow available for melting. Munthe did not, however, mention that the farms belonging to the Munthe family in the Mjølver village were inflicted damage by Nigardsbreen. This does not mean that farms in Mjølver village were not affected negatively by Nigardsbreen, but it would have been reasonable to discuss during the ongoing court hearing on three other farms affected by natural hazards. The next time the Munthe family made a statement on natural hazards impacting farms in Jostedalen, in 1742 CE, they mentioned both floods in Ormberg (further south of the parsonage) and Elvekrok as well as rock falls in Åsen (Figure 1) and glacier-induced damage at the villages of Bergset and Mjølver.

In 1742, the two farmers Ole Grov and Ole Bjørk (64 and c. 70 years old, respectively) stated in an inquiry that in their youth the terminus of Tuftebreen (Figure 1) could only be seen high up in the narrowest neck of Tufteskaret (the scar where it is enclosed today), and thereafter continuously advanced (e.g. Laberg, 1944). Based on their age, it might be deduced that their memory stretches back to roughly 1680–90 CE (Document, 1742). The advance of Tuftebreen from the scar towards the valley bottom of Bergsetdalen therefore started sometime after the 1680s, yet, earlier than 1742 as the ageing farmers could recall this as a memory from their younger years. An acceleration had occurred as an advance of 190 m (100 fathoms) during the last decade was reported by farmer Rasmus Kronen (Document, 1742).

During the inspections at Bergset in 1742, it was noted an avalanche that was the second to pass in ‘18 or 20 years’ time that had demolished all farm buildings in its way (Document, 1742). Therefore, a first avalanche must likely have occurred during the first part of the 1720s as yet another event confirming large amounts of snowfall at this time. In the oldest church records in Jostedalen from 1733–51, the vicar noted a lack of church attendance on several occations due to weather conditions. Large amounts of snow are specifically mentioned in this matter during January and March 1737, January, February and March 1743, December 1744, December 1748 and February 1749 (Document, 1733–1751). The large snowfall during winter 1743 is also mentioned in the vicar Matthias Foss’ desperate letter to the diocesan clerk in Bergen, describing scarcity of food, starvation, and avalanches threatening the clergy house (Document, 1743b). Notably, several winters between 1733 and 1751 CE are poorly documented in the church records due to an occasional absence of vicars and substitutes, and notes on bad weather were only reported when conditions were so bad that the parish did not attend religious services. As such, there is from a large degree of confidence understated reports regarding extreme conditions during several winters for this period.

(C) 1611–1838: Tax lists

Tax records have previously been applied in studies on the LIA advancement of Norwegian glaciers (e.g. Grove and Battagel, 1983). Their investigations of tax records from neighbouring regions and the small towns of Stryn and Olden (Figure 1) probed mainly two records; the cadastres of 1667 and 1723 CE, and further analysed the reduction in numbers of cattle in individual parishes. The reduction was notably larger in the villages situated close to Jostedalsbreen than the more distal areas. In Olden, the amount of cattle was reduced by as much as 39% (Grove and Battagel, 1983) owing to the worsened living conditions.

The same methodology may be applied for investigations on individual farms within an area, and in the analyses of Jostedalen in this study we extend the source database to several tax registers over a longer period. Rather than cattle numbers, the specific tax rate is applied, converted to smørskyld. Smørskyld translates to land lease fee converted to butter (‘smør’ = butter). In valleys where dairy cattle were important the tenants paid their land lease fee in butter they produced as a taxable value (‘laupar smør’). One (1) ‘laup’ of butter was equal to about 18 kg (Grove and Battagel, 1983).

From the early 1600s, Jostedalen accounted as its own tax district. Tax lists were of two main categories. The first category was lists of tax rates, that is, what the farmers were required to pay (cadastres). The other category, and by far the most common, are accounting lists of what they actually paid. The oldest tax list from Jostedalen is the vicar’s tax list from c. 1596 CE (Johannessen, 2000), and there is further a cadastre from 1600 and a tax list from 1603. From 1611 CE there are yearly lists, and often several types of lists from each year. In general, the tax load increased over time, especially during periods of war when the state experienced increased financial needs. Surely, there could be several reasons why farmers were not able to pay taxes in one or several years; there could have been poor harvests or other natural perils, as well as health issues, alcohol/substance abuse, or family and social conditions leading to inability to pay taxes. The causes given are rarely others than the farmers being poor. As aggregate data, the tax lists still yield relevant and relative information. Though it was the most affected area by the advancing Nigardsbreen in the 1700s, the Mjølver village (encompassing farms Nigard, Bjørkehaugen and Mjølver; Figure 1), was ranked as one of the best farming areas in Jostedalen in the early 1600s – sustaining 3–4 farming families and taxpaying farmers. Mjølverdalen likely constituted an important resource area for the farms in the village of Mjølver, available for both grazing, collecting fodder, mountain farming, etc. It is therefore likely that the emerging of Nigardsbreen and the resulting destruction of this potential resource area would economically impact Mjølver village a long time before the glacier itself ploughed into cultivated land and farmhouses.

The tax lists explored here allow for a comparison of the time-transgressive trend in relative tax load between the farms in Mjølver village compared with the total tax load of all other farms in the northern part of Jostedalen as components of the entire valley tax load (Table 1 and Figure 4). The northern part of Jostedalen is here defined as the farms north of the church and parsonage (Figure 1c), including the tributary Krundalen valley, which is where the local community was probably most affected by the advancing glaciers. Establishing intervals between where tax rate adjustments were made, that is, where a change in tax load is detected, our selection of tax lists shows that all but one exception (Tax, 1627–1628) has chosen cadastres to notify tax rates, and not what was actually paid. Hence, it must be stressed that the tax lists roughly indicate the production capacity of the farms and do not include how much was actually produced or the income of individual farmers. Also, a long period of time could pass since the production capacity changed until the tax rates were adjusted up or down. The source material is nevertheless adequate for assessing the major trends (Figure 4), which reveals a large decrease in relative tax load from the Mjølver village component (dark grey bars) until 1742 CE; contrary to the relatively constant trend found for other farms in northern Jostedalen over the same period (light grey bars).

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Table 1.

Tax records 1611–1838 CE.

Yr. CE	Mjølver village	Northern Jostedalen excl. Mjølver village	Jostedalen, all	Northern Jostedalen excl. Mjølver village, % of Jostedalen (all)	Mjølver village, % of Jostedalen (all)
1611*	0.50	1.17	3.44	34.0%	14.5%
1620*	0.61	1.33	4.01	33.2%	15.2%
1627-28*	4.17	14.16	35.83	39.5%	11.6%
1647*	2.92	12.16	29.50	41.2%	9.9%
1666*	2.00	11.83	29.44	40.2%	6.8%
1723*	1.79	11.84	29.38	40.3%	6.1%
1742*	0.81	11.17	27.25	41.0%	3.0%
1838**	3.27	23.74	63.19	37.6%	5.2%

*

: Tax unit measured in ‘laupar smør’ (see text); **: Tax unit measured in silver currency. Note that the absolute values (italicised) for years 1611 and 1620 CE are considerably lower due to alternate calculations of incurred taxes. However, the relative data are not affected (Source material: Document, 1742; Tax, 1611, 1620, 1627–1628, 1647, 1666, 1723, 1838).

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Figure 4.

The relative tax load of two regions as percentage of the total tax load of the entire Jostedalen valley. Note the non-linear timeline of the x-axis (cf. text).

The northern part of Jostedalen excluding Mjølver village held a relatively constant part of the total tax load of Jostedalen at about 40% from the 1620s until the 1800s. The Mjølver village component on the other hand, decreased from constituting c. 15% of the tax income from Jostedalen in the early 1600s down to c. 6% in the cadastres of 1666 and 1723 (Table 1). The sharp decline in 1742 (Figure 4) is a result of the heavily impaired tax that particular year.

The absolute tax load numbers calculated to amounts of produced butter show that a relatively large drop in the Mjølver village component from 4.17 ‘laupar’ butter to 0.81 ‘laupar’ in 1742 CE did not originate from an increase in other parts of Jostedalen. On the contrary, the total tax load of Jostedalen as a whole remained stable around 30 ‘laupar’ (c. 540 kg) butter between 1647–1723 CE. Mjølver village, however, shows a continuous decrease from 1627–28 to 1742. This decline in tax load indicates that the production capacity of the farms in Mjølver village underwent considerable deterioration throughout much of the 1600s, not only during the few years before Nigardsbreen reached its maximum extent in the 1740s. Based on the tax lists examined above we infer that the climatic conditions must have led to far more negative consequences in Mjølver village than the rest of Jostedalen before any reports of glaciers causing havoc. It is hard to explain by any other factor than an initiation of a glacier advance of Nigardsbreen, disputing the rejection of any glacier advance prior to the 1700s by Rekstad (1900), who also analysed farm productivity. Worth noting, is that Rekstad based his assumptions on farm productivity numbers for the entire Jostedalen valley rather than the highly local tax load variations presented here (Table 1).

(D) c. 1700–1740s: Advance towards LIA maximum

Based mainly on the notes of the vicar in Jostedalen between 1725–1731 CE, Hans Wiingaard, current consensus affirms an initiation of the LIA advance of Nigardsbreen to c. 1710 CE (Grove, 2004; Hoel and Werenskiold, 1962; Nussbaumer et al., 2011; Rekstad, 1900, 1902; Østrem et al., 1976). Wiingard was still the owner of Jostedal Church from 1726 to 1751, so he held a connection to the village 20 years following his departure (Document, 1833). He wrote a description of the glacier advance which was included in a publication by Strøm (1762). Date of origin of Wiingards written description is unknown, though it must have preceeded his death in 1758 and likely after 1750. Wiingard writes that the glacier periodically varies in extent, and that at a given point, the glacier would advance in the enclosing valley in a 30–60 year period before subsequently retreating over a longer period. In areas where the glacier has retreated, Wiingaard notes that it leaves lands barren where grasses supposedly will never grow again, which was the case in Krundalen. Also affected by the glacier advances was Mjølverdalen, where the glacier over a period of 30 years advanced to the point that a farm, Nigard, was demolished and became abandoned. Wiingaard writes (in Dano-Norwegian):

The glacier’s “. . .Beskaffenhed er meget foranderlig; thi undertiden gaaer den frem i de Dale, den grændser til, i 30 til 60 Aar, undertiden trækker den sig tilbage igien en Tid lang.” Where the glacier retreats, “efterlader den steriles areas, hvor siden aldrig voxer Græs”. “i en anden Dal, kaldet Mielvedal, hvor den i en Tid af 30 Aar har gaaet saa vidt frem, at den har borttaget Grunden, som tilhørede en Gaard, kaldet Nyegaard, hvorfor og samme Gaard for nogle Aar siden er bleven øde.” (Strøm, 1762).

The particular phrase on the 30-year duration of glacier advance at Nigardsbreen is the keystone upon which the inititation of the Nigardsbreen 1710 CE advance is built upon, and was first established by Rekstad (1900). It presumes both that Wiingaard wrote his description around 1740 CE, as well as a very literal interpretation of ‘30 years’ as a time estimate. However, since Wiingaard has included both the destruction of the Nigard farm (occurring c. 1742–1743), as well as assessing a retreat of the glaciers in Krundalen but not of Nigardsbreen (reaching its maximum in 1748 CE), this corroborates the theory that the description was not written down until at least 1750 CE. The statement ‘30 years’ must also be acknowledged as a very rough and imprecise note of information, much like the saying ‘the memory of a man’, and be placed in context with the common contemporary idea that glaciers were regularly paced with a 30–60 years advance cycle before retreat. Thus, there is no clear evidence that 1710 CE is in fact the ‘LIA minimum’ of Nigardsbreen or an ‘initiation date’ of the LIA at Nigardsbreen. Nor can any geographical information on the location of the terminus be accurately derived. On the other hand, it may be deduced from Wiingaard that the glaciers did not continuously advance towards their maximum extent, but rather experienced short-term still-stands, or even phases of retreat, before reaching the LIA maximum extent.

Wiingaard further refers to a tale amongst farmers in Jostedalen that at one point there were 14 ‘røgstuer’ (i.e. a type of traditional farm house with no chimneys for ventilation) in Mjølverdalen. He attests this from a note on traces of a formerly existing road upvalley stretching towards the glacier that had indubitably been used by farmers in the past. The advance of Nigardsbreen must therefore have been occurring for such a long time that hearsay on the havoc and destructions of the farms in front of Nigardsbreen became well-established.

Still, several sources are unequivocally clear on the dramatic and rapid advance taking place during the last decades before the LIA maximum. The oldest source commenting on destruction of agricultural productive lands by Nigardsbreen dates back to 1723 CE, where it states that the Nigard farm (i.e. the former Nigard farm; Figure 1) was for all practical purposes destroyed (Document, 1723). Further, taxes were deducted by 12 marks due to direct glacier impact and resulting crop failures already in 1723 CE. This information is thus far not known from scientific literature, but from the cadastre protocols on the tax deduction (Dano-Norwegian):

“Denne gaard ligger under Sneebreen eller Jisfieldet, som er u-foranderlig alle aaringer, udj henseende till dend Ruin, som dend Skade gaarden derved tilføyes, Eftersom samme Jisfield aarligen forøges frem Voxer og fremskyder sig alt dybere og dybere ofver gaardens tilliggende marcher, og kand formedelst kulden udaf samme Jisfield, ingen sæd voxe, huorfore dend aftoeges — 12 mark.” (Document, 1723).

The next known document noting on a glacier advance is from a court witness in November 1735 (Eide, 1955; Nussbaumer et al., 2011). During the 12 years that had passed since 1723 CE, the Nigard farm, belonging to Guttorm Johannesson, was inflicted ‘unspeakable’ damage by the infamous glacier. The glacier had expanded to such a degree that it had overrun and engulfed most of the cultivated fields, as well as blocking corn growth (Eide, 1955; Grove, 1988). Farmer Johannesson was unable to pay land lease fee and was effectively forced to beg for food and seeds. On future prospects it was stated that if the glacier would continue its growth at the same rate as the past few years, it would only be ‘a stone’s throw’ away from the farm houses, and the farm would be eraticated in a few years time. A stone’s throw is a very rough estimate of extent, but assuming there is a certain overstatement here, it might be deduced that the glacier must have been 50–100 m in distance of the farm houses.

The most comprehensive presentation of the Nigardsbreen advance is presented in court descriptions following the inspections of 21–23 August 1742 (Document, 1742). This is also the most widely acknowledged and cited source, as mentioned by both Foss (1750) and by Smith (1817). Gottfried Bohr became the first to read and cite the court records in 1819 (Bohr, 1820). According to the records the glacier was situated 20 alen (old unit of length) from the empty or abandoned farm houses that had been left 4 years earlier. Thus, Nigard was vacated in 1738 CE, or 3 years after Guttorm Johannessons testimony in court on the poor conditions in autumn 1735 CE (Eide, 1955). One ‘alen’ equals 62.8 cm in 1742 CE, and therefore the glacier was situated only 12–13 m from the buildings. The level of detail is probably correct in this case, as they used measuring tape during the inspections (Document, 1742). Further, from both recollections of the men present at the inspection in addition to observed conditions at the site the records suggest that cultivated fields and grazing lands were engulfed by the advancing ice over ‘a quarter mile’. One mile equalled 18,000 alen, that is, 11.3 km. Hence, a quarter mile would equal 2825 m; roughly the distance from the glacier front to the present-day parking area which is centred next to lake Nigardsbrevatnet. This constitutes the primary argument stating that Nigardsbreen advanced more than 2800 m since c. 1710 CE in previous studies (e.g. Østrem et al., 1976). A quarter mile must be interpreted as a rough estimate on distance with large margins of error in a valley yet engulfed with glacier ice, and the exact date of ‘1710’ is, as indicated earlier, even more uncertain and mainly based on hearsay. Thus, there is no argument to designate the terminus of Nigardsbreen anywhere between the pine remains (c. 1668–1682 CE) (Figure 2) and 1735 CE, or to differentiate time periods between the age of the pine remains and the year 1735 CE with respect to difference in rates of glacier advancement.

Synthesising front variations of Nigardsbreen since 1710 CE, Østrem et al. (1976) argue that the glacier did not advance between 1735 and 1742 CE. However, this is likely as a result of citing Foss (1750), whom in turn misinformed on the distance between the glacier terminus and the Nigard farm houses in 1742. His statements are not in compliance with the documents dated 1735 and 1742 CE as the glacier was declared a ‘stone’s throw away’ from the farm houses in 1735 CE (Eide, 1955). Here, a stone’s throw is stipulated roughly to 50–100 m, whereas the distance was only 12–13 m in 1742 CE (Document, 1742), and, finally, in 1743, the houses were destroyed by the ice advance (Foss, 1750).

Foss took part, at least as a host for the visiting officials residing at the parsonage (Figure 1) during the inspections in August 1742. He, however, did not have access to the court records from the inspection while writing his publication as the information deviates too much from these records and is too imprecise. Foss claimed that the houses in Nigard in August 1742 were 100 alen from the glacier terminus, but the correct numbers from the inspections are 20 alen. He further stated that between August 1742 until August 1743 the glacier had advanced 100 alen destroying farm houses and wreaking havoc by effectively bulldozing its way through the courtyard, and the farmer himself had to abandon the farm in haste. Foss writes (in Dano-Norwegian):

“. . . til aarsdagen derefter Aaret 1743 hafde Iisbræen ey allene skut sig frem de 100de Alne i Længden, foruden umaadelig i breeden, men end og borttaget Huusene, omkastet dem, veltet dem for sig med een umaadelig mængde af jord, gruus og store steene fra afgrunden og knuset dem ganske i smaa stykker, som endnu er tilsiune, og manden som besad jorden maatte med hast forlade gaard og grund. . .” (Foss, 1750).

That the farmer at Nigard had to abandon the farm hastily, however, is not in compliance with court records. During the on-the-spot investigations it was informed that the farmer had already moved out in 1738 CE, and that the farm houses were at that time, 1742, uninhabitated (Document, 1742). When Foss writes that the glacier advanced 100 alen (i.e. c. 63 m) between August 1742 to August 1743, this is also imprecise. The only credible information is the depiction of the glacier entering the courtyard of Nigard in 1742-1743, as there was only 12–13 m remaining between the farm houses and the glacier terminus in August 1742 (Document, 1742). According to Foss, Nigardsbreen was drawing closer to the farm of Bjørkehaugen (Figure 1) and had already laid the fields of the farm barren between 1742–43 so that only the houses remained, but were for all intents and purposes ‘inhabitable’ (Foss, 1750). The preceeding year, on the contrary, the court records (Document, 1742) state that a tenant farmer, Knut Mattisson, recided in Bjørkehaugen. Mattisson may, however, have moved in the consecutive year, or Foss may have remembered incorrectly.

More insight on the relative impact of the glacier on everyday life is found in a complaint dated 28 December 1742 (Document, 1743a; Hoel, 2013), in which nine farmers from the northern part of Jostedalen were pleading for tax excemption until harvests improved. Here, they stated that the glacier had advanced across the valley floors to such a degree that particularly the latter 6 years became extremely windy and cold as a direct consequence of the increasing glacier vicinity. Most of the agricultural lands in Jostedalen were supposedly affected, and harvests were poor (Document, 1743a). The exact age constraint of 6 years denoted here likely reflects that the crop failure, as a direct consequence of glacier advance, was likely most pronounced during the last 6 years that had passed since 1736 CE. It does not imply that the glacier advanced at a particularly rapid rate during this time. The four specific years and the source material assessed above dated 1723, 1735, 1742 and 1743 CE, reveal that over this 20-year period there most likely was a continuous glacier advance taking place and not a still-stand (cf., Foss, 1750; Østrem et al., 1976).

(E) 1748: LIA maximum and the following deglaciation

The most important piece of information derived from vicar Foss is that the glacier retreated since 1748 CE (Foss, 1750). This has been, and remains, the main documentation of Nigardsbreen reaching its LIA maximum extent in 1748 CE.

Leopold von Buch visited Jostedalen in 1806 CE and Christen Smith visited in 1812. However, their accounts add nothing of importance on the position of the terminus of Nigardsbreen at the time (Smith, 1817; von Buch, 1812). Gottfried Bohr, however, notes that 14 July 1818 the terminus of Nigardsbreen was located at a distance of 1726 ft (i.e. 545 m; Table 2), measured as a straight line from the centre of the ‘mighty’ end moraine in front of Elvekrok (Figure 1) representing the 1748 CE extent of the glacier (Bohr, 1820). The retreat between 1748 and 1818 was thus 545 m.

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Table 2.

Frontal changes and cumulative frontal changes (m) of Nigardsbreen.

Yr. CE	Original data from Østrem et al. (1976)	Østrem et al. (1976) cumulative data	Adjusted data (Østrem et al., 1976) relative to year 1899 CE	Revisions made in this study relative to Østrem et al. (1976)	Adjusted and cumulative data (this study) relative to year 1899 CE	Rate of advance (+) and retreat (−) (m yr−1)
1680					–2145*
1710	0	0	–955	+1230	+915
1735	+2800	+2800	+1845	+2800	+1885
1742	0	+2800	+1845	0	+1885
1743	+100**	+2900	+1945	+63**	+1948
1748	+50	+2950	+1995	+50	+1998	+61
1818	–540	+2410	+1455	–540	+1458	–8
1823	–70	+2340	+1385	–70	+1388	–14
1845	–80	+2260	+1305	–80	+1308	–4
1873	–710	+1550	+595	–710	+598	–25
1899	–595	+955	0	–595	0	–23
1946					–665	–14
1975					–2576	–66
1989					–2620	–3
2003					–2368	+20
2022					–2985	–34

*

Tree log (1680-age): Recalibrated in this study (cf., text). **100 ‘alen’: Misinterpreted as metres by Østrem et al. (1976) and should equal to c. 63 m (this study). Italicised numbers: Rejected data points (this study).