Orographic precipitation and the relief of mountain ranges

The influence of climate on the relief of mountain ranges has long been supposed but has received little quantitative investigation. The simplified system of a longitudinal river profile in a bedrock channel coupled to a physically based model of orographic precipitation is used to explore how orographically influenced patterns of precipitation affect the relief of fluvially sculpted mountain ranges. It is shown that the impact on the orography depends on the nature of the precipitation regime. Significant changes in relief also occur for imposed temperature changes of realistic magnitude, although the ability of the relief to respond to any given change depends sensitively on its response time and the timescale of the forcing.