Transfluence - Glacial-Drainage Capture Can Tell Us More Than The Sedimentary Record About Climate Change

Mountain glaciers respond to climate change by rapidly advancing or receding as global temperatures have spiked upward and downward numerous times throughout geological history. Those changes in glacier extent control hydrology, sediment transport, and deposition in rivers downstream.  The sedimentary record in glaciated catchments therefore is an important archive with that can help unravel past climate changes but, unlike rivers, whose flow is controlled entirely by land surface topography, glaciers are able to flow uphill and across ridgelines - a process called "transfluence." Glacier advance and recession can result in drainage capture by transfluent ice flow, and so change catchment drainage areas and hydrological budgets.  read more

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