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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Geomorphic responses to climatic change

Book ·
OSTI ID:5603696
The primary focus of this book is the response of landscapes to Pleistocene and Holocene climatic changes. During the past 40 ky the global climate has varied from full-glacial to interglacial. Global temperatures decreased between 40 and 20 ka culminating in full-glacial climatic conditions at 20 ka. This resulted in a sea level decline of 130 m. Only 8 to 14 ky later the global temperature had reversed itself and the climate was the warmest of the past 120 ky. These dramatic changes in climate imposed significant controls on fluvial systems and impacted land forms and whole landscapes worldwide. Chapter 1, Conceptual Models for Changing landscapes, presents numerous concepts related to erosional and depositional processes controlling landscape development. Each of the next four chapters of the book, 2, 3, 4, and 5, examine different aspects of climatic change on fluvial systems. The conceptual models are used to analyze landscape response in four different climatic and geologic settings. In each setting the present and past climatic conditions, the climatically induced changes in vegetation and soil development, and geochronology are considered in assessing the influence of climatic changes on geomorphic processes. Chapter 2, investigates the influence of climatic change on the geomorphic processes operating in desert watersheds in the southwestern US and northern Mexico. The study sites for Chapter 3, are small desert drainage basins in the southwestern US and near the Sinai Peninsula in the Middle East. Chapter 4, investigates fill terraces in several drainage basins of the San Gabrial Mountains of the central Transverse Ranges of coastal southern California. The study site for Chapter 5 is the Charwell River watershed in the Seaward Kaikoura Range of New Zealand. Chapter 6, Difference Responses of Arid and Humid Fluvial Systems, compares the effects of changing climates in basins that range from extremely arid to humid.
OSTI ID:
5603696
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English