A Model of Ice Wedge Polygon Drainage in Changing Arctic Terrain
1
Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA
2
Earth and Environmental Sciences Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Water 2020, 12(12), 3376; https://doi.org/10.3390/w12123376
Received: 25 September 2020 / Revised: 24 November 2020 / Accepted: 25 November 2020 / Published: 1 December 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Hydrology of the Arctic Region)
As ice wedge degradation and the inundation of polygonal troughs become increasingly common processes across the Arctic, lateral export of water from polygonal soils may represent an important mechanism for the mobilization of dissolved organic carbon and other solutes. However, drainage from ice wedge polygons is poorly understood. We constructed a model which uses cross-sectional flow nets to define flow paths of meltwater through the active layer of an inundated low-centered polygon towards the trough. The model includes the effects of evaporation and simulates the depletion of ponded water in the polygon center during the thaw season. In most simulations, we discovered a strong hydrodynamic edge effect: only a small fraction of the polygon volume near the rim area is flushed by the drainage at relatively high velocities, suggesting that nearly all advective transport of solutes, heat, and soil particles is confined to this zone. Estimates of characteristic drainage times from the polygon center are consistent with published field observations.
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Keywords:
ice wedge; thermokarst; active layer; flow net
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MDPI and ACS Style
Zlotnik, V.A.; Harp, D.R.; Jafarov, E.E.; Abolt, C.J. A Model of Ice Wedge Polygon Drainage in Changing Arctic Terrain. Water 2020, 12, 3376. https://doi.org/10.3390/w12123376
AMA Style
Zlotnik VA, Harp DR, Jafarov EE, Abolt CJ. A Model of Ice Wedge Polygon Drainage in Changing Arctic Terrain. Water. 2020; 12(12):3376. https://doi.org/10.3390/w12123376
Chicago/Turabian StyleZlotnik, Vitaly A.; Harp, Dylan R.; Jafarov, Elchin E.; Abolt, Charles J. 2020. "A Model of Ice Wedge Polygon Drainage in Changing Arctic Terrain" Water 12, no. 12: 3376. https://doi.org/10.3390/w12123376
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