A pan-arctic evaluation of changes in river discharge during the latter half of the 20th century

• Published in: Geophysical Research Letters
• Main Authors: McClelland, James W., Dery, Stephen J., Peterson, Bruce J., Holmes, Robert M., Wood, Eric F.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Geophysical Union 2006
• Subjects: Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Hudson; Subarctic
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/1912/924

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2006. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 33 (2006): L06715, doi:10.1029/2006GL025753. Several recent publications have documented changes in river discharge from arctic and subarctic watersheds. Comparison of these findings, however, has been hampered by differences in time periods and methods of analysis. Here we compare changes in discharge from different regions of the pan-arctic watershed using identical time periods and analytical methods. Discharge to the Arctic Ocean increased by 5.6 km3/y/y during 1964-2000, the net result of a large increase from Eurasia moderated by a small decrease from North America. In contrast, discharge to Hudson/James/Ungava Bays decreased by 2.5 km3/y/y during 1964-2000. While this evaluation identifies an overall increase in discharge (~120 km3/y greater discharge at the end of the time period as compared to the beginning for Hudson/James/Unvaga Bays and the Arctic Ocean combined), the contrasting regional trends also highlight the need to understand the consequences of adding/removing freshwater from particular regions of the arctic and subarctic oceans. This work was supported by the Arctic System Science Program of the National Science Foundation (NSF-OPP-0229302, NSF-OPP-0230211, NSF-OPP-0519840) and by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NA17RJ2612).