Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
8908027 | Geomorphology | 2018 | 71 Pages |
Abstract
Numerical models are used to explore the alpine glacier response to its climate history. In warming climates, a debris-covered glacier can transform into a much shorter rock glacier, leaving in its wake a thinning ice-cored moraine. Rock glaciers will persist in landscapes well beyond debris-free counterparts because they have much longer response times to climate change. The headwaters of alpine basins with steep headwalls will therefore oscillate between glacier and rock glacier occupation over glacial-interglacial cycles, maintaining a means by which rock from the headwall can be conveyed away. This enhances the asymmetry of alpine ridgelines, with downwind valleys biting deeply into the range crests, as originally noted by G.K. Gilbert.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Earth and Planetary Sciences
Earth-Surface Processes
Authors
Robert S. Anderson, Leif S. Anderson, William H. Armstrong, Matthew W. Rossi, Sarah E. Crump,