Understanding linkages among Earth’s surface, interior, climate, and biosphere through the lens of topographic change

Abstract:

Research over the past two decades has led to great progress in understanding Earth system interactions linking climate, tectonics, and erosion. This progress has revealed unexpected connections among various components of the Earth system, and brought into focus key scientific questions that must be addressed to understand them. Here we discuss opportunities for the Earth sciences community to better understand linkages among Earth’s surface, interior, climate, and biosphere over the next decade through the study of topographic change, as envisioned by the recent National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine report, A Vision for NSF Earth Sciences 2020-2030: Earth in Time (freely available at: http://nap.edu/25761).

Topography is sensitive to processes that operate above, on, and below the Earth’s surface at many scales, and is a fundamental feature of the landscapes on which we live. As a consequence, quantifying topographic change can advance many areas of geoscience—from understanding Earth-system interactions over geologic time, to addressing urgent challenges faced by human societies in the coming decades. For example, how do rock mechanical properties, short-term actors such as storms, and the rheology and dynamics of Earth’s interior influence landscape evolution? How do landscapes co-evolve with the atmosphere, cryosphere, sea level, and life? There is also critical need to understand how topography and topographic change impact human society through geologic hazards and the creation or destruction of natural resources and habitats. How will topography influence ecosystem and hydrologic change in a changing climate? How will land use, ecosystem, and water cycle changes in turn alter topography? And what insight do observations and understanding of topographic change provide into the processes that underlie hazards posed by earthquakes, landslides, floods, mudflows, eruptions, and tsunami? Recent advances in our ability to measure and model topographic change on many time scales have created new frontiers and opportunities for insight. The Earth sciences community is now poised for breakthroughs in understanding the interactions of Earth’s surface and deep interior, and the co-evolution of Earth’s solid, fluid, and living components, through the study of topographic change.