What sets aeolian dune height?

Andrew Gunn, Giampietro Casasanta, Luca Liberto, Federico Falcini, Nicholas Lancaster and Douglas J. Jerolmack ()
Additional contact information
Andrew Gunn: Monash University
Giampietro Casasanta: Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate - National Research Council of Italy (CNR-ISAC)
Luca Liberto: Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate - National Research Council of Italy (CNR-ISAC)
Federico Falcini: Institute of Marine Science - National Research Council of Italy (CNR-ISMAR)
Nicholas Lancaster: Desert Research Institute
Douglas J. Jerolmack: University of Pennsylvania

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Wherever a loose bed of sand is subject to sufficiently strong winds, aeolian dunes form at predictable wavelengths and growth rates. As dunes mature and coarsen, however, their growth trajectories become more idiosyncratic; nonlinear effects, sediment supply, wind variability and geologic constraints become increasingly relevant, resulting in complex and history-dependent dune amalgamations. Here we examine a fundamental question: do aeolian dunes stop growing and, if so, what determines their ultimate size? Earth’s major sand seas are populated by giant sand dunes, evolved over tens of thousands of years. We perform a global analysis of the topography of these giant dunes, and their associated atmospheric forcings and geologic constraints, and we perform numerical experiments to gain insight on temporal evolution of dune growth. We find no evidence of a previously proposed limit to dune size by atmospheric boundary layer height. Rather, our findings indicate that dunes may grow indefinitely in principle; but growth depends on morphology, slows with increasing size, and may ultimately be limited by sand supply.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-30031-1 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-30031-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-30031-1

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().