Increasing river discharge to the Arctic Ocean

• Main Authors: Bruce J. Peterson, Robert M. Holmes, James W. Mcclell, Charles J. Vörösmarty, Richard B. Lammers, Er I. Shiklomanov, Igor A. Shiklomanov, Stefan Rahmstorf
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2002
• Subjects: Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Global warming; North Atlantic; North Atlantic oscillation
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.692.7946; http://www.pik-potsdam.de/%7Estefan/Publications/Nature/peterson2002.pdf

Synthesis of river-monitoring data reveals that the average annual discharge of fresh water from the six largest Eurasian rivers to the Arctic Ocean increased by 7 % from 1936 to 1999. The average annual rate of increase was 2.0 0.7 cubic kilometers per year. Consequently, average annual discharge from the six rivers is now about 128 cubic kilometers per year greater than it was when routine measurements of discharge began. Discharge was correlated with changes in both the North Atlantic Oscillation and global mean surface air temperature. The observed large-scale change in freshwater flux has potentially important implications for ocean circulation and climate. The Arctic is expected to be disproportion-ately affected by global warming, and the Arctic in turn may exert strong feedback on global climate (1). Many of the linkages be-tween the arctic system and global climate involve the hydrologic cycle, including atmo-