Recent changes to Arctic river discharge

Abstract

Arctic rivers drain ~15% of the global land surface and significantly influence local communities and economies, freshwater and marine ecosystems, and global climate. However, trusted and public knowledge of pan-Arctic rivers is inadequate, especially for small rivers and across Eurasia, inhibiting understanding of the Arctic response to climate change. Here, we calculate daily streamflow in 486,493 pan-Arctic river reaches from 1984-2018 by assimilating 9.18 million river discharge estimates made from 155,710 satellite images into hydrologic model simulations. We reveal larger and more heterogenous total water export (3-17% greater) and water export acceleration (factor of 1.2-3.3 larger) than previously reported, with substantial differences across basins, ecoregions, stream orders, human regulation, and permafrost regimes. We also find significant changes in the spring freshet and summer stream intermittency. Ultimately, our results represent an updated, publicly available, and more accurate daily understanding of Arctic rivers uniquely enabled by recent advances in hydrologic modeling and remote sensing.

The Impacts of Freshwater Input and Surface Wind Velocity on the Strength and Extent of a Large High Latitude River Plume

“…Relative to pre-1998 records, average cumulative discharge has increased 2.75% since 2000 (Clark and Mannino, 2021). This updated record adds to the growing body of evidence of river flow increasing into the Arctic Ocean (McClelland et al, 2006;Durocher et al, 2019;Feng et al, 2021).…”

“…The northern Bering Sea and Arctic Ocean are rapidly experiencing the effects of climate change, with increasing ocean temperatures (Grebmeier, 2012;Danielson et al, 2020), loss of sea ice (Stabeno et al, 2019), increasing river flow (Feng et al, 2021), and mobilization of long buried carbon from permafrost into aquatic systems (e.g., Rawlins et al, 2019). The relatively shallow bathymetry and large freshwater input make the Arctic the freshest of the major ocean basins, with riverine input of freshwater and terrestrial material imprinting on the Arctic Ocean physics and biogeochemistry throughout the basin.…”

We Must Stop Fossil Fuel Emissions to Protect Permafrost Ecosystems

“…Sea ice extent and thickness have plummeted, with summer ice expected to disappear mid-century (IPCC, 2019). Freshwater inputs have increased because of glacial and icesheet melt and climbing river discharge (Bamber et al, 2018;King et al, 2020;Feng et al, 2021). At the same time, terrestrial permafrost degradation and pollution from outside the permafrost domain are substantially altering the delivery of carbon, nutrients, sediment, and pollutants via coastal collapse, river discharge, groundwater flux, and atmospheric transport (Fisher et al, 2012;Tank et al, 2016;Toohey et al, 2016;Fritz et al, 2017;Drake et al, 2018;Connolly et al, 2020;Wologo et al, 2021;Mann et al, 2022).…”

Geomorphologic Change in Nagavali River Basin: Geospatial Approach

“…2). The stream order also specifies the discharge variations cross section wise or longitudinal gradient that determine the channel characteristics and water quality [8]. The Nagavali river is a river of sixth order (Amazon is 12 th order), medium river with less drainage area (9510Km…”