The Climatic Signature of Incised River Meanders

Permanent Link:: http://dpanther.fiu.edu/dpService/dpPurlService/purl/FI15042575/00001

Material Information

Title:: The Climatic Signature of Incised River Meanders
Series Title:: Science Magazine 327
Creator:: Colin P. Stark
Jonathan R. Barbour
Yuichi S. Hayakawa
Tsuyoshi Hattanji
Niels Hovius
Hongey Chen
Ching-Weei Lin
Ming-Jame Horng
Kai-Qin Xu
Yukitoshi Fukahata
Affiliation:: Columbia University -- Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Columbia University -- Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
University of Tokyo -- Center for Spatial Information Science
University of Tsukuba -- Ibaraki -- Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences
University of Cambridge -- Department of Earth Sciences
National Taiwan University -- Department of Geosciences
National Chen Kung University -- Tainan -- Department of Earth Sciences
Water Resources Agency -- Ministry of Economic Affairs
Kyoto University -- Disaster Prevention Research Institute
Publisher:: American Association for the Advancement of Science
Publication Date:: 2010-03-19
Language:: English

Subjects / Keywords:: climate change
meanders
North Pacific Region
typhoons
rivers

Abstract:: Climate controls landscape evolution, but quantitative signatures of climatic drivers have yet to be found in topography on a broad scale. Here we describe how a topographic signature of typhoon rainfall is recorded in the meandering of incising mountain rivers in the western North Pacific. Spatially averaged river sinuosity generated from digital elevation data peaks in the typhoon-dominated subtropics, where extreme rainfall and flood events are common, and decreases toward the equatorial tropics and mid-latitudes, where such extremes are rare. Once climatic trends are removed, the primary control on sinuosity is rock weakness. Our results indicate that the weakness of bedrock channel walls and their weakening by heavy rainfall together modulate rates of meander propagation and sinuosity development in incising rivers.

Source Institution:: Florida International University
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