Why wouldn't massive torrents freeze on Mars? I am currently reading the Cambridge Guide to the Solar System. In chapter 8, section 8.7, they explain that massive torrents of water created outflow channels on the surface of Mars in the past. The book goes on to state that these torrents would have been unstoppable and

Such discharges would not freeze even under
present conditions on Mars.

Yet the atmosphere of Mars is under the triple point of water, so why is this the case?
... so why is this the case?

It may in fact NOT be the case!
Interestingly Phys.org's new item Early Mars was covered in ice sheets, not flowing rivers: study just showed up. It begins:

A large number of the valley networks scarring Mars's surface were carved by water melting beneath glacial ice, not by free-flowing rivers as previously thought, according to new UBC research published today in Nature Geoscience. The findings effectively throw cold water on the dominant &quot;warm and wet ancient Mars&quot; hypothesis, which postulates that rivers, rainfall and oceans once existed on the red planet.

and says later:

Grau Galofre's theory also helps explain how the valleys would have formed 3.8 billion years ago on a planet that is further away from the sun than Earth, during a time when the sun was less intense. &quot;Climate modelling predicts that Mars' ancient climate was much cooler during the time of valley network formation,&quot; says Grau Galofre, currently a SESE Exploration Post-doctoral Fellow at Arizona State University. &quot;We tried to put everything together and bring up a hypothesis that hadn't really been considered: that channels and valleys networks can form under ice sheets, as part of the drainage system that forms naturally under an ice sheet when there's water accumulated at the base.&quot;

and links to the new paper in Nature Geoscience Valley formation on early Mars by subglacial and fluvial erosion