| Summary: | Hydrological and meteorological observations at Lake Tuborg, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada in 1995 are used to investigate contemporary water and sediment transport processes. Here we describe a new environmental data set for the High Arctic, where such data are scarce. The studied watershed (˜460 km2) ranges in elevation between 63 and ˜1900 m asl and is 88% covered by a lobe of the Agassiz Ice Cap. Streamflow and sediment transport were strongly associated with snowmelt runoff, whereas the direct influence of summer precipitation events was negligible. Snowmelt was primarily controlled by synoptic-scale climatic processes. Two high-magnitude pulses of meltwater and slush contributed a significant portion of the measured suspended sediment load to Lake Tuborg. Such events may be associated each year with snowmelt along the Agassiz Ice Cap margin. Additional years of data collection are needed to define the annual and inter-annual variability of the sediment delivery system, particularly with respect to the relative importance of summer rainfall events. Runoff and sediment transport to Lake Tuborg are very likely to increase under climatic warming conditions.
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