Preface
Climatic Geomorphology constitutes a new look at a fairly old subject that has been
largely ignored in other more recent trends in the field, particularly in much process
geomorphology. But now Mateo Guti6rrez, well-known Professor of Geomorphology at
the University of Zaragoza in northeast Spain, has presented us with this new volume,
translated into English by ten of his colleagues. We are fortunate indeed to have his
authoritative writing and artful photography of so many parts of the world to grace our
understanding of landform character and evolution. Originally published in Spanish in
2001, this volume attracted the notice of many other geoscientists and was reviewed quite
favourably in more than five of our main journals of geomorphology, physical geography,
and environmental geology. The uniform praise led to suggestions that a translation into
English might be warranted, with the results that you now see before you. The relative lack
of such modem and well-illustrated texts devoted to climatic geomorphology in the
English language indicates that this new book is a deserving addition to the literature.
In recent years the great interest in the climate change so obviously underway in the
world, as well as the consequences of even greater climate change in the geological past,
have led to considerable interest in the topic. This book provides a global overview of the
different climatic zones of the Earth, and it reviews the advances in climatic
geomorphology that have been achieved in the past decades. Certain landform assemblages
are well known to be associated with different regional climate-process systems, a
statement that underscores the obvious, despite the fact that the details of some climatecontrolled processes are not yet that well understood. Thus we all recognize certain glacial,
periglacial, or humid tropical landform types, even though processes such as the exact
efficacy of deep glacial erosion, or long term rock-glacier formation and mechanics, or
bornhardt generation may remain somewhat elusive. Furthermore, in the temperate
latitudes where so many geomorphologists live and work, with the plethora of
morphoclimatic process overprints, such as, for example, the Pleistocene glacial signatures
impressed upon so much of the landscape of Europe and North America, it may surprise
some that aspects of this now vanished glacial process still remain somewhat enigmatic.
Nevertheless, the fact that climate change has occurred so many times in the past is not
in dispute, although the lability or amount of time that a given landform may take to come
into equilibrium existence in a particular climate type may not be at all well understood.
Thus a renewal of interest in the topic of climatic geomorphology seems entirely justified
as we seek to better understand the many ways that climate forcings produce landforms.
Nonetheless, one point that Professor Guti6rrez makes in this book that must always be
kept in mind is expressed by the principle of convergence or equifinality, in which different
processes produce the same landform so that oversimplified climatic explanations do not
Climatic Geomorphology constitutes a new look at a fairly old subject that has been
largely ignored in other more recent trends in the field, particularly in much process
geomorphology. But now Mateo Guti6rrez, well-known Professor of Geomorphology at
the University of Zaragoza in northeast Spain, has presented us with this new volume,
translated into English by ten of his colleagues. We are fortunate indeed to have his
authoritative writing and artful photography of so many parts of the world to grace our
understanding of landform character and evolution. Originally published in Spanish in
2001, this volume attracted the notice of many other geoscientists and was reviewed quite
favourably in more than five of our main journals of geomorphology, physical geography,
and environmental geology. The uniform praise led to suggestions that a translation into
English might be warranted, with the results that you now see before you. The relative lack
of such modem and well-illustrated texts devoted to climatic geomorphology in the
English language indicates that this new book is a deserving addition to the literature.
In recent years the great interest in the climate change so obviously underway in the
world, as well as the consequences of even greater climate change in the geological past,
have led to considerable interest in the topic. This book provides a global overview of the
different climatic zones of the Earth, and it reviews the advances in climatic
geomorphology that have been achieved in the past decades. Certain landform assemblages
are well known to be associated with different regional climate-process systems, a
statement that underscores the obvious, despite the fact that the details of some climatecontrolled processes are not yet that well understood. Thus we all recognize certain glacial,
periglacial, or humid tropical landform types, even though processes such as the exact
efficacy of deep glacial erosion, or long term rock-glacier formation and mechanics, or
bornhardt generation may remain somewhat elusive. Furthermore, in the temperate
latitudes where so many geomorphologists live and work, with the plethora of
morphoclimatic process overprints, such as, for example, the Pleistocene glacial signatures
impressed upon so much of the landscape of Europe and North America, it may surprise
some that aspects of this now vanished glacial process still remain somewhat enigmatic.
Nevertheless, the fact that climate change has occurred so many times in the past is not
in dispute, although the lability or amount of time that a given landform may take to come
into equilibrium existence in a particular climate type may not be at all well understood.
Thus a renewal of interest in the topic of climatic geomorphology seems entirely justified
as we seek to better understand the many ways that climate forcings produce landforms.
Nonetheless, one point that Professor Guti6rrez makes in this book that must always be
kept in mind is expressed by the principle of convergence or equifinality, in which different
processes produce the same landform so that oversimplified climatic explanations do not