Understanding the dynamics of heat transfer mechanisms is critical for forecasting the effects of climate change on arctic river temperatures. Climate influences on arctic river temperatures can be particularly important due to corresponding effects on nutrient dynamics and ecological responses. It was hypothesized that the same heat and mass fluxes affect arctic and temperate rivers, but that relative importance and variability over time and space differ. Through data collection and application of a river temperature model that accounts for the primary heat fluxes relevant in temperate climates, heat fluxes were estimated for a large arctic basin over wide ranges of hydrologic conditions. Heat flux influences similar to temperate systems included dominant shortwave radiation, shifts from positive to negative sensible heat flux with distance downstream, and greater influences of lateral inflows in the headwater region. Heat fluxes that differed from many temperate systems included consistently negative net longwave radiation and small average latent heat fluxes. Radiative heat fluxes comprised 88% of total absolute heat flux while all other heat fluxes contributed less than 5% on average. Periodic significance was seen for lateral inflows (up to 26%) and latent heat flux (up to 18%) in the lower and higher stream order portions of the watershed, respectively. Evenly distributed lateral inflows from large scale flow differencing and temperatures from representative tributaries provided a data efficient method for estimating the associated heat loads. Poor model performance under low flows demonstrated need for further testing and data collection to support the inclusion of additional heat fluxes.

Lateral inflows control the spatial distribution of river discharge, and understanding their patterns is fundamental for accurately modelling instream flows and travel time distributions necessary for evaluating impacts of climate change on aquatic habitat suitability, river energy budgets, and fate of dissolved organic carbon. Yet, little is known about the spatial distribution of lateral inflows in Arctic rivers given the lack of gauging stations. With a network of stream gauging and meteorological stations within the Kuparuk River watershed in northern Alaska, we estimated precipitation and lateral inflows for nine subcatchments from 1 July to 4 August,2013, 2014, and 2015. Total precipitation, lateral inflows, runoff ratios (area-normalized lateral inflow divided by precipitation), percent contribution to total basin discharge, and lateral inflow per river kilometre were estimated for each watershed for relatively dry, moderate, or wet summers. The results show substantial variability between years and subcatchments. Total basin lateral inflow depths ranged 24-fold in response to a threefold change in rainfall between dry and wet years, whereas within-basin lateral inflows varied fivefold from the coastal plain to the foothills. General spatial trends in lateral inflows were consistent with previous studies and mean summer precipitation patterns. However, the spatially distributed nature of these estimates revealed that reaches in the vicinity of a spring-fed surficial ice feature do not follow general spatial trends and that the coastal plain, which is typically considered to produce minimal runoff, showed potential to contribute to total river discharge. These findings are used to provide a spatially distributed understanding of lateral inflows and identify watershed characteristics that influence hydrologic responses.