Climatic geomorphology

One distinctive feature is the sparse or lacking vegetation cover, which influences fluvial and slope processes, related to wind and salt activity.

[8] In periglacial geomorphology noted researchers include Johan Gunnar Andersson, Walery Łoziński, Anders Rapp and Jean Tricart.

[9] Another characteristic, that is not related to present-day climate per se, is that a large portion of the tropics have a low relief which was inherited from the continent of Gondwana.

[15] The limitations of morphoclimatic zoning were already discussed by Siegfried Passarge in 1926 who considered vegetation and the extent of weathered material as having more direct impact than climate in many parts of the World.

[3] Piotr Migoń has questioned the validity of certain morphoclimatic zonation schemes since they are named after processes, like planation, that might not occurring at all in large swathes of the zone.

Referring to the 1977 scheme of Büdel Migoń states:[3] Is it really helpful to have the Volcanic Cordillera of Mexico, coastal ranges of southeast Brazil, plains of East Africa, the escarpments of Western Ghats and the mountains of Taiwan in the same zone, labelled as the ‘peritropical zone of excessive planation’?During the age of New Imperialism in the late 19th century European explorers and scientists traveled across the globe bringing descriptions of landscapes and landforms.

The rise of climatic geomorphology was foreshadowed by the work of Wladimir Köppen, Vasily Dokuchaev and Andreas Schimper.

[15][19] The discipline emerged in the 1940s with works of Carl Troll, Emmanuel de Martonne, Pierre Birot and Julius Büdel.

[19] The foundation of climatic geomorphology in Germany lies according to Hanna Bremer in Albrecht Penck, Siegfried Passarge and Alfred Hettner's preference of field observations over theory.

[17][10] The criticism by Stoddart proved "devastating" contributing to a decline in the popularity of climatic geomorphology in the late 20th century.

[17] Writing in 1974 Michael Thomas noted works on geomorphology in the tropics were often qualitative and in some cases even "impressionistic", but that there was "a small but growing number of quantitative studies".

[21] Another critical view is that of Eiju Yatsu who noted that climatic geomorphology relied much on "good observations which are hard to demonstrate and to learn.

"[22] Despite having diminished in importance, climatic geomorphology continues to exist as a field of study producing relevant research.