Increasing River Discharge to the Arctic Ocean

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...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inScience (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 298; no. 5601; pp. 2171 - 2173
Main Authors Peterson, Bruce J., Holmes, Robert M., McClelland, James W., Vörösmarty, Charles J., Lammers, Richard B., Shiklomanov, Alexander I., Shiklomanov, Igor A., Rahmstorf, Stefan
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States American Association for the Advancement of Science 13.12.2002
Subjects
Brackish
Climate change
Climate cycles
Climate models
Environmental aspects
Fresh water
Freshwater
Global climate models
Global warming
Marine
Oceanic climates
Oceans
River sediments
Sea transportation
Surface temperature
Arctic Ocean
Arctic
Atlantic Ocean
Greenland
PN, Arctic Ocean
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Summary: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.
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ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.1077445