River Discharge and Freshwater Runoff to the Barents Sea under Present and Future Climate Conditions
River discharge forms a major freshwater input into the Arctic Ocean, and as such it has the potential to influence the oceanic circulation. As the hydrology of Arctic river basins is dominated by cryospheric processes such as snow accumulation and snowmelt, it may also be highly sensitive to a chan...
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ftjrc:oai:publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu:JRC33208 2023-05-15T14:57:46+02:00 River Discharge and Freshwater Runoff to the Barents Sea under Present and Future Climate Conditions DANKERS Rutger MIDDELKOOP Hans 2008 Printed https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC33208 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-007-9349-x ENG eng SPRINGER JRC33208 2008 ftjrc https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-007-9349-x 2022-05-01T08:15:34Z River discharge forms a major freshwater input into the Arctic Ocean, and as such it has the potential to influence the oceanic circulation. As the hydrology of Arctic river basins is dominated by cryospheric processes such as snow accumulation and snowmelt, it may also be highly sensitive to a change in climate. Estimating the water balance of these river basins is therefore important, but it is complicated by the sparseness of observations and the large uncertainties related to the measurement of snowfalls. This study aims at simulating the water balance of the Barents Sea drainage basin in Northern Europe under present and future climate conditions. We used a regional climate model to drive a large-scale hydrological model of the area. Using simulated precipitation derived from a climate model led to an overestimation of the annual discharge in most river basins, but not in all. Under the B2 scenario of climate change, the model simulated a 25% increase in freshwater runoff, which is proportionally larger than the projected precipitation increase. As the snow season is 30 to 50 day shorter, the spring discharge peak is shifted by about two to three weeks, but the hydrological regime of the rivers remains dominated by snowmelt. JRC.H.7 - Land management and natural hazards Other/Unknown Material Arctic Arctic Ocean Barents Sea Climate change Joint Research Centre, European Commission: JRC Publications Repository Arctic Arctic Ocean Barents Sea Climatic Change 87 1-2 131 153 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Joint Research Centre, European Commission: JRC Publications Repository |
op_collection_id |
ftjrc |
language |
English |
description |
River discharge forms a major freshwater input into the Arctic Ocean, and as such it has the potential to influence the oceanic circulation. As the hydrology of Arctic river basins is dominated by cryospheric processes such as snow accumulation and snowmelt, it may also be highly sensitive to a change in climate. Estimating the water balance of these river basins is therefore important, but it is complicated by the sparseness of observations and the large uncertainties related to the measurement of snowfalls. This study aims at simulating the water balance of the Barents Sea drainage basin in Northern Europe under present and future climate conditions. We used a regional climate model to drive a large-scale hydrological model of the area. Using simulated precipitation derived from a climate model led to an overestimation of the annual discharge in most river basins, but not in all. Under the B2 scenario of climate change, the model simulated a 25% increase in freshwater runoff, which is proportionally larger than the projected precipitation increase. As the snow season is 30 to 50 day shorter, the spring discharge peak is shifted by about two to three weeks, but the hydrological regime of the rivers remains dominated by snowmelt. JRC.H.7 - Land management and natural hazards |
author |
DANKERS Rutger MIDDELKOOP Hans |
spellingShingle |
DANKERS Rutger MIDDELKOOP Hans River Discharge and Freshwater Runoff to the Barents Sea under Present and Future Climate Conditions |
author_facet |
DANKERS Rutger MIDDELKOOP Hans |
author_sort |
DANKERS Rutger |
title |
River Discharge and Freshwater Runoff to the Barents Sea under Present and Future Climate Conditions |
title_short |
River Discharge and Freshwater Runoff to the Barents Sea under Present and Future Climate Conditions |
title_full |
River Discharge and Freshwater Runoff to the Barents Sea under Present and Future Climate Conditions |
title_fullStr |
River Discharge and Freshwater Runoff to the Barents Sea under Present and Future Climate Conditions |
title_full_unstemmed |
River Discharge and Freshwater Runoff to the Barents Sea under Present and Future Climate Conditions |
title_sort |
river discharge and freshwater runoff to the barents sea under present and future climate conditions |
publisher |
SPRINGER |
publishDate |
2008 |
url |
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC33208 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-007-9349-x |
geographic |
Arctic Arctic Ocean Barents Sea |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Arctic Ocean Barents Sea |
genre |
Arctic Arctic Ocean Barents Sea Climate change |
genre_facet |
Arctic Arctic Ocean Barents Sea Climate change |
op_relation |
JRC33208 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-007-9349-x |
container_title |
Climatic Change |
container_volume |
87 |
container_issue |
1-2 |
container_start_page |
131 |
op_container_end_page |
153 |
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1766329883276869632 |