Sponsor
This work was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Antarctic Earth Sciences program under award ANT-1343835 to Levy, Fountain, and W. B. Lyons.
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.
DOI
10.1038/srep02269
Persistent Identifier
http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/10494
Citation Details
Levy, J.S.et al. Accelerated thermokarst formation in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica. Sci. Rep. 3, 2269; DOI:10.1038/srep02269 (2013).
Included in
Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment Commons, Glaciology Commons, Soil Science Commons
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/