On the Relationships Among Climate, Topography, and Discharge-Driven Fluvial Incision Using an Asynchronously Coupled Climate-Landscape Evolution Model
No Thumbnail Available
Can’t use the file because of accessibility barriers? Contact us with the title of the item, permanent link, and specifics of your accommodation need.
Date
2021-09-22
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Permanent Link
Abstract
One of the primary drivers of landscape evolution is climate-driven river incision. The amount, frequency, and distribution of water discharge and runoff within a channel governs river incision, and these characteristics will change based on climate regime and topography. It is essential to distinguish between discharge distributions in different climatic and topographic settings to understand how river incision shapes landscapes. In this study, we analyze discharge distributions generated using an asynchronously coupled landscape evolution and climate model and examine their effect on river incision across a range of latitudes from 0S to 40S, with and without a topographic barrier. We first characterize each discharge distribution by calculating values for mean discharge and discharge variability and then extrapolate these discharge distributions to larger flood values, which then drive incision in a 1D river model. We find landscape sensitivity to climate-topography feedbacks is climate-regime dependent, with the most extreme changes to discharge characteristics and channel morphology in drier climates (20S and 30S). Finally, our results indicate that mean discharge and runoff are the principal factors in changing river concavity and relief for a given latitude or mountain height. Discharge variability becomes important for driving fluvial incision, only when mean discharge between two settings is similar, but discharge variabilities are different. We demonstrate the utility of using a coupled climate-landscape model to characterize discharge distributions across climate regimes and in response to topographic growth and determine the most important climatic variables for driving landscape evolution.
Description
Keywords
Geomorphology, Climate, Bedrock Rivers, Streamflow
Citation
Lynch, B., Yanites, B., Shen, H., & Poulsen, C. 2021. On the Relationships Among Climate, Topography, and Discharge-Driven Fluvial Incision Using an Asynchronously Coupled Climate-Landscape Evolution Model. JGR: Earth Surface
Journal
DOI
Link(s) to data and video for this item
Relation
Rights
Type
Dataset