Third I.A.G. / A.I.G. SEDIBUD Workshop, Boulder, USA: Sediment Fluxes and Sediment Budgets in Changing High-Latitude and High-Altitude Cold Environments

Abstract

Climate change affects all Earth surface systems but with the arguably\rgreatest impact in high-latitude and high-altitude cold environments. In these areas, climate change shapes earth surface processes not just by altering vegetation cover and human activities but also through its impact on frost penetration and duration within the ground surface layers. All of these factors influence patterns of erosion, transport and deposition of sediments and related fluxes (e.g., nutrients, solutes, carbon).\rIt is a challenge to develop a better understanding of how these factors combine to affect sedimentary transfer processes and sediment budgets in cold environments. Our baseline knowledge on the erosion, sedimentary transfer and depositional processes operating within Holocene and contemporary climates and as landscape systems evolved and under given vegetation covers, forms our basis for predicting the consequences of predicted future climate change and related vegetation cover changes. However, much of this information is limited in terms of spatial and temporal coverage and needs to be extended and consolidated. Only when we have these reliable models response to landscape and climate change we will have fuller understanding of probable future changes to these regions.