Hydrology of Tierney Creek, Vestfold Hills, Antarctica

• Published in: Polar Record
• Main Author: Bronge, Christian
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1999
• Subjects: General Earth and Planetary Sciences; Ecology; Geography, Planning and Development; Victoria Land; Vestfold Hills; Vestfold; Onyx River; Chelnok; Chelnok Lake; Tierney Creek; Antarc*; Antarctica; Polar Record
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0032247400026486; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0032247400026486

Abstract The discharge in Tierney Creek from proglacial Chelnok Lake was recorded during the summer of 1987–1988. In addition, air temperature, water temperature, and radiation were recorded. Multiple linear regressions revealed that discharge could be predicted from recorded radiation and air temperature in late summer. In early summer, other factors such as wind must also be taken into account. Long-term discharge fluctuations displayed response times that decreased during the runoff season due to the opening of the meltwater channels on the ice-margin. During parts of the runoff season, flow variations were modulated by nocturnal freezing in the creek, a phenomenon still more pronounced in Onyx River in the Dry Valleys of Victoria Land. Hydrologically, Tierney Creek resembled Onyx River, but, in the Onyx, the flow pattern was more exclusively determined by low air temperatures than it was in Tierney Creek. In the Dry Valleys, streams whose lengths, gradients, and discharges are of the same magnitude as those of Tierney Creek, also display similar recession coefficients and time lags between flow peak and insolation peak.