Letter | Published:

Observed latitudinal variations in erosion as a function of glacier dynamics

Nature volume 526, pages 100103 (01 October 2015) | Download Citation

Abstract

Glacial erosion is fundamental to our understanding of the role of Cenozoic-era climate change in the development of topography worldwide, yet the factors that control the rate of erosion by ice remain poorly understood. In many tectonically active mountain ranges, glaciers have been inferred to be highly erosive, and conditions of glaciation are used to explain both the marked relief typical of alpine settings and the limit on mountain heights above the snowline, that is, the glacial buzzsaw1. In other high-latitude regions, glacial erosion is presumed to be minimal, where a mantle of cold ice effectively protects landscapes from erosion2,3,4. Glacial erosion rates are expected to increase with decreasing latitude, owing to the climatic control on basal temperature and the production of meltwater, which promotes glacial sliding, erosion and sediment transfer. This relationship between climate, glacier dynamics and erosion rate is the focus of recent numerical modelling5,6,7,8, yet it is qualitative and lacks an empirical database. Here we present a comprehensive data set that permits explicit examination of the factors controlling glacier erosion across climatic regimes. We report contemporary ice fluxes, sliding speeds and erosion rates inferred from sediment yields from 15 outlet glaciers spanning 19 degrees of latitude from Patagonia to the Antarctic Peninsula. Although this broad region has a relatively uniform tectonic and geologic history, the thermal regimes of its glaciers range from temperate to polar. We find that basin-averaged erosion rates vary by three orders of magnitude over this latitudinal transect. Our findings imply that climate and the glacier thermal regime control erosion rates more than do extent of ice cover, ice flux or sliding speeds.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the US National Science Foundation (OPP 0338371). We thank the crews of the ice breaker RV Nathaniel B. Palmer and the MV Petrel IV, members of Waters of Patagonia, support staff from Raytheon Polar Services, and collaborators from the Centro de Estudios Cientificos in Valdivia, Chile, the University of Washington, Rice University and the University of Houston for assisting in deployments, sampling and analysis of the sediment cores, bathymetric data, ice front geometries and acoustic reflection profiles collected during the cruises. We particularly thank J. Anderson, A. Rivera, M. Jaffrey, J. Evans and T. Verzone for help and logistical support in the field; R. Sylwester for his contribution to the collection of acoustic reflection profiles in Chile; C. Nittrouer, B. Forrest, C. Landowski, J. Berquist and T. Drexler for processing and analysing the sediment cores; T. Pratt for processing of acoustic profiles in Jorge Montt; J. Anderson and R. Fernandez for supporting data and discussions; C. Brookfield for editing and insight; R. Jaña at INACH for provision of Landsat imagery of the Antarctic Peninsula; and M. Jaffrey, J. Newton and A. Winter-Billington for help with statistical analyses.

Author information

Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, 1984 West Mall, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z2, Canada

    • Michéle Koppes
  2. Department of Earth and Space Sciences and Quaternary Research Center, Box 351310, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195-1310, USA

    • Bernard Hallet
  3. Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, California 92617, USA

    • Eric Rignot
    •  & Jérémie Mouginot
  4. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California 91109, USA

    • Eric Rignot
  5. Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Houston, Houston, Texas 77204, USA

    • Julia Smith Wellner
  6. School of Oceanography, Box 357940, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195-7940, USA

    • Katherine Boldt

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Contributions

M.K., B.H. and J.S.W., together with J. Anderson, designed the study. M.K. conducted all analyses of glaciological and erosion-rate data, and prepared the manuscript. E.R. and J.M. contributed the ice-velocity measurements. K.B. contributed the accumulation-rate results, and provided new data for Jorge Montt Glacier. J.S.W. and K.B. analysed the bathymetric data, acoustic profiles and sediment cores in the Antarctic Peninsula fjords. All authors contributed to discussions and interpretations.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michéle Koppes.

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https://doi.org/10.1038/nature15385

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