AbstractWell-developed surface channels on Taylor Glacier, McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica, begin as medial moraines incised as shallow, narrow surface depressions, and retain this geometry for tens of km. Over a distance of 1100 m, the channel geometry dramatically changes, reaching depths >20m and widths >100 m. After rapidly enlarging, the channels appear to evolve toward a new equilibrium geometry. Compared to the glacier surface, the air temperature in the channels is warmer by ∼1.7˚C, wind speed is reduced by ∼2.4ms–1 and net shortwave radiation is greater by ∼14Wm–2. The microclimate in the channel shifts the energy balance towards enhanced melt. Field evidence and energy-balance modeling indicate ablation in the deep channels is ∼4.5 times greater than the local horizontal glacier surface and that melt accounts for ∼99% of the summer ablation, compared to ∼75% on the adjacent horizontal glacier surface. Melt in these channels supplies 65% of the unaccounted water discharge into the neighboring lake. In large part, the channels generate the water they carry, rather than merely route water generated elsewhere.
Pseudovertical Temperature Profiles Give Insight into Winter Evolution of the Atmospheric Boundary Layer over the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica
