Glacial erosion: controls and global distribution

Glacial erosion has often been parameterized as proportional to glacier sliding velocity, while the role played by local geology, hydrology and climate remain largely unquantified. As a result, our understanding of the links between global climate, tectonics and glacial erosion is limited. To address this shortcoming, we present a comprehensive synthesis of previously published Quaternary glacial erosion rates from six different measurement techniques integrated over 10^-2 to 10⁶ years: (i) instrumental measurements beneath active glaciers, (ii) sediment fluxes derived from meltwater streams or (iii) ice-marginal deposits, (iv) terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide dating (TCN), (vi) luminescence thermochronometry, and (v) relief generation of chronologically constrained surfaces. Our synthesis includes 1065 empirical data points and 465 erosion rates from ice sheets, ice caps, and topographically confined glaciers that range over six orders of magnitude, between 10^-4 and 100 mm yr^-1. Using a filtered dataset of contemporary erosion rates, we apply machine learning tools, using available environmental, glaciological, and geological datasets to assess the dominant controls on subgroups of nominal data categories.  On a global scale, while glacial sliding velocity is an important control, we also discover equally strong or stronger correlations between other glaciological, environmental, and lithological parameters and glacial erosion rate, some of which have not been previously documented.