Climate sensitivity: implications for the response of geomorphological systems to future climate change

Climate sensitivity is defined as the equilibrium temperature response of the climate system to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 levels from pre-industrial levels. Despite three decades of debate in the climatological literature on the estimation and significance of climate sensitivity, very little appears in the geomorphological literature on the implications of this for geomorphological systems. This paper reviews the concept of climate sensitivity and applies its findings to an assessment of future landscape change in cold regions. It is concluded that paraglacial processes will become the dominant mechanism of sediment transfer in currently glaciated catchments and that this period of sediment mobilization will be the last episode of major sediment movement for geological time periods.