The visible and hidden climatic effects on Earth's denudation

Abstract. Denudation is the opposite process of mountain uplift and plays a major role in the Earth system. Despite the research to constrain its environmental control, uncertainties remain about which are the dominant physicochemical processes at play. Here, the 10Be-derived denudation rate, encompassing time windows from 102 to 105 yr, was modelled in over a thousand basins across the Earth. The results suggest that water and associated life have a positive effect across their whole range, which is regulated by topography due to processes such as the energy expended by rivers on their beds, the feedback between erosion and weathering, and the transport and production rate of soils. Consequently, bioclimatic influence is weak in flat landscapes, but it could vary denudation forty times in mountain settings. It was also observed that other things being equal, water availability steepens basins, so climate also has an indirect effect acting on geological timeframes. The results can be useful for the landscape's numerical modelling and highlight the importance of climate on denudation.