Pan-Arctic drainage basin monitoring: current status and potential significance for assessment of climate change effects and feedbacks

• Access to reliable hydrologic data is of paramount importance for accurately understanding and modeling ongoing change in and climate feedbacks of the Arctic hydrologic cycle. The accessibility to such data is limited, and continues to decline for some Arctic areas, but there is little information on where and which data gaps are most critical. We present a quantitative assessment of openly accessible monitoring data for water discharge and chemistry in the pan-Arctic drainage basin. We also quantify differences in characteristics between monitored and unmonitored areas, and analyze spatial patterns in reported decline of discharge networks in relation to recently observed and future modeled temperature trends. Results indicate that there is significant disparity in the spatial and temporal distribution of monitoring data, in particular for water chemistry monitoring. Additionally, there are systematic differences between the characteristics of monitored and unmonitored areas, within and between the different continents in the pan-Arctic drainage basin. Discharge network density has declined the most in four Eurasian drainage basins, which show the smallest recently observed temperature trends but the greatest modeled future temperature changes. Differences in characteristics between monitored and unmonitored areas may limit the reliability of assessments of Arctic water and solute flux change under a warming climate. Arctic monitoring needs to be extended in certain areas to fully enable characterization of the hydrologic variability and change in the region.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Oceanografi, hydrologi och vattenresurser (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Oceanography, Hydrology and Water Resources (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

arctic

hydrology

monitoring

water chemistry

Hydrology

Hydrologi

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)