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Nicholas Carver
Earth 505
Final
Spring 2016
The final project for Earth Systems II was to built a model of the Himalaya
mountain spanning the last 50 million years and capturing the cooling effect the Earth has
undergone. The model constructed has three separate modules, one representing the
carbon budget, another representing the water budget, and the third, which I worked on
representing the rock mass budget of the Himalaya.
The model contains two inflows, the first representing the mass influx resulting
from the tectonic convergence of the Indian plate and the Asian continent. The first
inflow in labeled ‘Tectonic Convergence’ and has rough estimates of the length of
contact between the Himalayan range and the Indian plate. The convergence rate is also
accounted for as is the thickness, and density of the Indian plate.
The second inflow is labeled ‘Tibetan Influx’ and represents the inflow of mass
from Tibet as the mass of the Himalaya increased. To represent this in the STELLA
model I used the height of the Himalaya connected to the mass of the Himalaya, as the
connection directly to the inflow is prohibited in the STELLA model. I tried to express
within STELLA that if the height of the Himalaya was greater that 1000 meters then
there should be an addition of an amount from Tibet. I failed to have this properly
express within the system I built. The equation I used to apply this value after a reference
height return numbers too large to work within the STELLA software (Figure 1). The
problem could be from a lack of erosion in the model that is discussed later. Also
accounted for by the ‘Tibetan Influx’ is the density of the material being forced in, the
thickness of the material being force in, and the length the material is passing. The
inflows both contribute to a single reservoir that represents the mass of the Himalaya.
The sink for this system is an outflow representing erosion. There are many
connectors into erosion and somewhere within them lies a crippling error for the system.
I think the failure to produce a viable erosion rate is the issue keeping the system from
running when trying to manipulate the second inflow (Figure 2).
The model that I built wasn’t able to run any experiments so I used the model
provided by Dr. Dempsey. I chose to manipulate the reference precipitation rate for the
rock budget model provided. I doubled the reference rate and halved it, neither
experiment had a large effect on the model when compared to the reference rate of 2.5
meter per year(Figures 3-8).
Figure 1. An error message indicating a number being too large within the system. I may
have incorrectly used the IF-THEN application within the equation.
Figure 2. A graphic representation of the failure of the erosion rate to respond under
condition that allow the model to run. I think the problem lies in here as to why the model
will not run under other condition.
Figure 3. The changes in erosion, tectonic convergence, and mountain height as projected
by the model supplied to the class, when the reference precipitation rate is decreased by
half to 1.25 meters per year. There is very little change when compared to the graphic
representation of the original reference precipitation rate of 2.5 meters per year.
Figure 4. The temperature change projected by the model provided to the class,
temperature is labeled ‘1’ in the graph, when the reference precipitation is decreased by
half to 1.25 meters per year. There is very little change when compared to the graphic
representation of the original reference precipitation rate of 2.5 meters per year.
Figure 5. The changes in erosion, tectonic convergence, and mountain height as projected
by the model supplied to the class, when the reference precipitation rate is decreased by
half to 5 meters per year. There is very little change when compared to the graphic
representation of the original reference precipitation rate of 2.5 meters per year.
Figure 6. The temperature change projected by the model provided to the class,
temperature is labeled ‘1’ in the graph, when the reference precipitation is doubled to 5
meters per year. There is very little change when compared to the graphic representation
of the original reference precipitation rate of 2.5 meters per year.
Figure 7. The projected changes in the erosion rate, tectonic convergence, and the
mountain height when using the original reference rate of 2.5 meters per year.
Figure 8. The temperature projected when using the provided reference rate. Temperature
is ‘1’ in this graph.
Figure 9. The STELLA model I constructed of the mass rock budget of the Himalaya for
the final project.
Figure 10. The equations resulting from the construction of the rock mass budget for the
Himalaya that I constructed.