Fluvial transport in the deglaciated Antarctic catchment – Bohemian Stream, James Ross Island

With the ongoing climate change and the prolongation of the summer melting season and increasing air temperature that this entails, fluvial transport is likely to become a more important process shaping the deglaciated areas of Antarctica. Quantification of suspended sediment transport in the deglaciated catchment of the Bohemian Stream is presented in this study. It was shown that a large amount of fine-grained material is being transported even in the relatively small catchment during the short period of the Antarctic summer. The average calculated suspended sediment concentration during the 2018 austral summer reached 274.6 mg l−1, which corresponded to an average suspended sediment load of 3662 kg day−1 and suspended sediment yield of 68 t km−2 year−1 when considering the flow season to be approximately 4 months per year. Such values are considerably higher than those reported from continental Antarctica; however, they are lower compared to most of the Arctic catchments.