Abstracts on Global Climate Change

The rate of soil creep sets the tempo at which material is transferred from hill-slopes to fluvial systems over major portions of terrestrial landscapes. Hence, soil creep rates affect the rates of landscape evolution and delivery of terrigenous material to floodplains and eventually to the oceans. Herein, we compile data from all sources worldwide that arc readily available in the literature, and derive common, quantitative characteristics of soil creep from digitized soil displacement profiles that permit estimates of soil flux and comparison between diverse studies. We also search for systematic variations of creep rates with climate and explore potential feedbacks between creep rates and climate. Significant creep is found in a range of environments worldwide and is fueled by diverse physical and biological processes. The considerable inter-site variability overwhelms the dependence of creep rates on hillslope gradient and obscures, but does not conceal, the climate influence. We speculate that the general tendency for rapid creep to be associated with colder climates could exacerbate global climate change. A global rise in temperature, for example, could slow the sequestration of atmospheric CO2 as creep rates decrease by slowing two distinct pedogcnic processes: mineral weathering, which is sensitive function of processes that create and freshen mineral surfaces, and the subaerial delivery of organic carbon stored in soils to rivers and long-lived reservoirs.

| /unclassified/todo | 313