Published In

Scientific Reports

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-24-2013

Subjects

Thermokarst -- Growth -- Antarctica -- McMurdo Dry Valleys, Glacier caves, Landscape changes -- Antarctica, Glaciers -- Climatic factors -- Arctic regions

Abstract

Thermokarst is a land surface lowered and disrupted by melting ground ice. Thermokarst is a major driver of landscape change in the Arctic, but has been considered to be a minor process in Antarctica. Here, we use ground-based and airborne LiDAR coupled with timelapse imaging and meteorological data to show that 1) thermokarst formation has accelerated in Garwood Valley, Antarctica; 2) the rate of thermokarst erosion is presently,10 times the average Holocene rate; and 3) the increased rate of thermokarst formation is driven most strongly by increasing insolation and sediment/albedo feedbacks. This suggests that sediment enhancement of insolation-driven melting may act similarly to expected increases in Antarctic air temperature (presently occurring along the Antarctic Peninsula), and may serve as a leading indicator of imminent landscape change in Antarctica that will generate thermokarst landforms similar to those in Arctic periglacial terrains.

Description

Supplementary information accompanies this paper at http://www.nature.com/ scientificreports

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

DOI

10.1038/srep02269

Persistent Identifier

http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/10494

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