Decoupling Kinetic and Hydrological Controls on Global Silicate Weathering via a Stratified Observational Factorial Framework
Abstract
Continental silicate weathering acts as the primary geological sink for atmosphericcarbon dioxide over multimillion-year timescales, yet whether weathering fluxes arefundamentally governed by thermodynamic temperature limits or hydrological runoffremains fiercely debated. Resolving this controversy globally has been hindered by thestrong natural collinearity of terrestrial temperature and precipitation. Here, wedecouple these drivers by applying a stratified 3×3 factorial response-surfaceframework to 5,292 harmonised modern river sediment samples compiled from globalgeochemical databases and WorldClim grids. Two-way analysis of variance revealsthat temperature exerts a substantially larger main effect (F = 163.34, partial η2 =0.058) than precipitation (F = 87.33, partial η2 = 0.032). Furthermore, significantinteraction curvature (p < 0.00001) uncovers an asymptotic saturation plateau in warm,hyper-humid extremes: shifting from moderate to high rainfall in the warmest tier yieldsno alteration gain (ΔCIA = −0.77, p = 0.42; ΔCIX = −0.44, p = 0.58). Molar cationpreservation ratios confirm that this plateau is driven by primary feldspar bypassresulting from monsoonal regolith stripping, establishing critical non-linear constraintsfor Earth System Models.
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BibTeX
@misc{halder2026decoupling,
title = {{Decoupling Kinetic and Hydrological Controls on Global Silicate Weathering via a Stratified Observational Factorial Framework}},
author = {Arpan Halder},
howpublished = {EarthArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.31223/x5pn6f},
url = {https://eartharxiv.org/repository/view/15033/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Decoupling Kinetic and Hydrological Controls on Global Silicate Weathering via a Stratified Observational Factorial Framework
AU - Arpan Halder
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/17
PB - EarthArXiv
DO - 10.31223/x5pn6f
UR - https://eartharxiv.org/repository/view/15033/
AB - Continental silicate weathering acts as the primary geological sink for atmosphericcarbon dioxide over multimillion-year timescales, yet whether weathering fluxes arefundamentally governed by thermodynamic temperature limits or hydrological runoffremains fiercely debated. Resolving this controversy globally has been hindered by thestrong natural collinearity of terrestrial temperature and precipitation. Here, wedecouple these drivers by applying a stratified 3×3 factorial response-surfaceframework to 5,292 harmonised modern river sediment samples compiled from globalgeochemical databases and WorldClim grids. Two-way analysis of variance revealsthat temperature exerts a substantially larger main effect (F = 163.34, partial η2 =0.058) than precipitation (F = 87.33, partial η2 = 0.032). Furthermore, significantinteraction curvature (p < 0.00001) uncovers an asymptotic saturation plateau in warm,hyper-humid extremes: shifting from moderate to high rainfall in the warmest tier yieldsno alteration gain (ΔCIA = −0.77, p = 0.42; ΔCIX = −0.44, p = 0.58). Molar cationpreservation ratios confirm that this plateau is driven by primary feldspar bypassresulting from monsoonal regolith stripping, establishing critical non-linear constraintsfor Earth System Models.
ER -