@article{SmithRheinwaltBookhagen2021,
  author    = {Smith, Taylor and Rheinwalt, Aljoscha and Bookhagen, Bodo},
  title     = {Topography and climate in the upper Indus Basin},
  series = {The science of the total environment : an international journal for scientific research into the environment and its relationship with man},
  volume    = {786},
  journal   = {The science of the total environment : an international journal for scientific research into the environment and its relationship with man},
  publisher = {Elsevier},
  address   = {Amsterdam},
  issn      = {0048-9697},
  doi       = {10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147363},
  pages     = {11},
  year      = {2021},
  abstract  = {The Upper Indus Basin (UIB), which covers a wide range of climatic and topographic settings, provides an ideal venue to explore the relationship between climate and topography. While the distribution of snow and glaciers is spatially and temporally heterogeneous, there exist regions with similar elevation-snow relationships. In this work, we construct elevation-binned snow-cover statistics to analyze 3415 watersheds and 7357 glaciers in the UIB region. We group both glaciers and watersheds using a hierarchical clustering approach and find that (1) watershed clusters mirror large-scale moisture transport patterns and (2) are highly dependent on median watershed elevation. (3) Glacier clusters are spatially heterogeneous and are less strongly controlled by elevation, but rather by local topographic parameters that modify solar insolation. Our clustering approach allows us to clearly define self-similar snow-topographic regions. Eastern watersheds in the UIB show a steep snow cover-elevation relationship whereas watersheds in the central and western UIB have moderately sloped relationships, but cluster in distinct groups. We highlight this snow-cover-topographic transition zone and argue that these watersheds have different hydrologic responses than other regions. Our hierarchical clustering approach provides a potential new framework to use in defining climatic zones in the cyrosphere based on empirical data.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{SmithBookhagen2021,
  author    = {Smith, Taylor and Bookhagen, Bodo},
  title     = {Climatic and biotic controls on topographic asymmetry at the global scale},
  series = {Journal of geophysical research : JGR, Earth surface},
  volume    = {126},
  journal   = {Journal of geophysical research : JGR, Earth surface},
  number    = {1},
  publisher = {American Geophysical Union},
  address   = {Washington},
  issn      = {2169-9003},
  doi       = {10.1029/2020JF005692},
  pages     = {24},
  year      = {2021},
  abstract  = {Insolation differences play a primary role in controlling microclimate and vegetation cover, which together influence the development of topography. Topographic asymmetry (TA), or slope differences between terrain aspects, has been well documented in small-scale, field-based, and modeling studies. Here we combine a suite of environmental (e.g., vegetation, temperature, solar insolation) and topographic (e.g., elevation, drainage network) data to explore the driving mechanisms and markers of TA on a global scale. Using a novel empirical TA analysis method, we find that (1) steeper terrain has higher TA magnitudes, (2) globally, pole-facing terrain is on average steeper than equator-facing terrain, especially in mid-latitude, tectonically quiescent, and vegetated landscapes, and (3) high-elevation and low-temperature regions tend to have terrain steepened toward the equator. We further show that there are distinct differences in climate and vegetation cover across terrain aspects, and that TA is reflected in the size and form of fluvial drainage networks. Our work supports the argument that insolation asymmetries engender differences in local microclimates and vegetation on opposing terrain aspects, which broadly encourage the development of asymmetric topography across a range of lithologic, tectonic, geomorphic, and climatic settings.},
  language  = {en}
}