Man made global warming, at rates unprecedented in the geological record, in combination with intense and expanding anthropogenic land-use has lead to a substantial alteration of natural environmental background conditions. Acceleration of global warming and land-use, and with it amplification of the spatial distribution and intensity of erosion processes, is expected for the near future due to the continued emission of greenhouse gases and population growth. Earth Surface Dynamics and related fields of research aiming at the understanding of physico-chemical processes that control Earth’s surface evolution as well as particle and element fluxes can therefore provide important insight into processes that directly impact our modern societies.

Although numerous studies have demonstrated how climatically forced changes in erosion processes influence relief evolution, the impact of intrinsic climate variability on surface processes and on long-term landscape dynamics as well as on tectonics in a more quantitative fashion has remained largely unexplored, possibly because it has proven difficult to assess. Quantifying the geomorphic response to (1) anthropogenic climate and land-use change, (2) high-frequency climate variability (e.g. freeze-thaw cycles, monsoonal precipitation), (3) extreme climatic events (e.g. tropical cyclones, flood/debris flow events), and (4) long-term climate evolution (e.g. Plio-Pleistocene glacial/interglacial cycles, Late-Pleistocene to Holocene climatic change) is therefore of prime importance to better understand erosional processes and sediment/element fluxes at the Earth’s surface.

This session aims at presenting original studies that quantify climatically (and anthropogenically) forced changes in surface and tectonic processes, sediment production and landscape dynamics on different temporal and spatial scales. We welcome contributions including (but not limited to) remote-sensing, field investigations, surface-process modelling, geochemical tracers, continental sedimentary archives or other innovative tools.

Invited speakers: Fabien Arnaud (Univ. Savoie Mont-Blanc, France) and Taylor Schildgen (GFZ Postdam, Germany)