Geoscience Reference
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Several challenges and science objectives under the theme of climate-landscape-
tectonics interactions are primed for significant advances:
•
Developing theory for the interactions between climate, topography, land
cover, and the deeper Earth interior at global, regional, and local scales.
•
Integrating surface processes and deep Earth studies, including petrological
and seismological studies, and the record of past surface environments, to
explore connections between deep Earth processes and Earth surface
dynamics.
•
Developing geomorphic transport laws that account for climate and the role of
biota to describe and quantify river and glacial incision; landslides; and the
production, transport, and deposition of sediment.
•
Measuring and modeling landscape evolution under diverse and varying
climatic conditions, with an emphasis on identification of physiographic
signatures of climate and climate variability, and evaluation of thresholds of
landscape response and the limits of landscape resilience.
•
Improvement of coupling between surface process and climate models,
including incorporation of feedbacks and thresholds.
Figure 2.17
Predicted sea-level change in meters following the collapse of the West
Antarctic Ice Sheet, based on theory that includes variations in ice and ocean volume,
gravity, rotation, and shoreline configurations and deformation of the crust and
mantle. SOURCE: From Mitrovica et al. (2009). Reprinted with permission from
AAAS.
All of these promising research areas will be facilitated by recent and new
developments in thermochronometry, cosmogenic methods for dating
geomorphological surfaces, LiDAR, satellite imagery, modeling capabilities,
experimental methods, and field instrumentation.
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