Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: How glaciation affects drawdown by chemical weathering influences the weathering‐climate feedback strength, which controls the exogenic carbon cycle and planetary habitability. However, the role of glaciers remains elusive as glaciation alters multiple factors controlling weathering, the net effect of which is ambiguous even in directionality. To isolate and quantify the effect of glaciers, we developed a novel multi‐proxy system for constraining catchment‐scale weathering fluxes in the past. This approach utilizes the correlation between Ge/Si and Si isotope ratios in modern rivers and the preservation of these signals in lacustrine sediments. Reconstructed weathering fluxes in two Icelandic catchments with different glacial histories during the past 10,000 years show that chemical weathering fluxes are roughly 10 times higher when a catchment is glaciated versus ice‐free. The synchronous variations in weathering fluxes with the expansion and contraction of glaciers indicate that glaciation may rapidly amplify climatic variations via a positive feedback.
Source: Geophysical Research Letters
DOI: 10.1029/2025gl115324
Institutions: ETH Zurich, Rice University, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Institut de physique du globe de Paris, Durham University, Université Paris Cité, University of Chicago, University of Iceland, Institute of Earth Sciences, Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado Boulder
Language: English
Subfield: Atmospheric Science
Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Climate action
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,190
Awards: Does Sediment Storage Set the Pace of the Terrestrial Organic Carbon Cycle?, G2446820490, Solute Isotope Fractionation during Fluid Transit, G434337789, G4912518754, G5343879103, EAR-PF: Testing if the SPICE is right - disentangling diagenesis, seawater chemistry, and ecological change across Cambrian trilobite extinctions using Ca and Mg isotope ratios, G6121021682, G7351608356, G7762834306
OpenAlex ID: W4414534290