Ongoing climate change (global warming) is a major forcing
factor on Earth’s ecological services including agricultural
production, biodiversity, and carbon cycle. Climatic regime
and climate change is also a major driver of the dynamics of
Earth’s geomorphological systems, including its glaciers,
rivers, mountains and coasts, especially over longer (103–
105 year) time scales that correspond to climate forcing by
orbital cycles. Many studies have considered how geomorphological
systems have responded to climate forcing over
long time scales, where system responses are approximately
in phase with forcing (Lal 2004; Lowe et al. 2008). Over
shorter time scales, however, geomorphological systems do
not respond in phase with climate forcing, are affected by
human (anthropogenic) activity, and yield nonlinear
responses that cannot be fully predicted based on their previous
behaviour (Perry 2002; Murray et al. 2009). The
response of geomorphological systems to climate forcing
can be examined by monitoring changes to their morphology
and geomorphological processes during the recent past (last
\150 years) for which instrumental climate data are available.
This comparison allows for a more complete understanding
of the relationship between climate forcing and
geomorphological response.