Understanding changes in river flow to the Arctic Ocean from Eurasia
using hydrological modeling
Abstract
River flow to the Arctic Ocean plays a significant role in the oceanic
freshwater budget accounting for about 2/3 of the total freshwater flux
to the Arctic Ocean. Ocean salinity and sea ice formation are critically
affected by river input and changes in the freshwater and heat fluxes to
the ocean can exert significant control over global ocean circulation
via the North Atlantic deep water formation. There are mounting
evidences that hydrological regime across the pan-Arctic is experiencing
an unprecedented degree of change. However, the exact causes of such
change are not immediately apparent, as they constitute a complex
interplay between climate- and human-induced drivers. We used a new
version of University of New Hampshire Water Balance Model (WBM) to
quantify major sources of changes in river flux to the Arctic Ocean from
Eurasian drainage basin. WBM is a grid based model which simulates the
vertical water exchange between the land surface and the atmosphere and
the horizontal water transport along a prescribed river networks for
both natural and anthropogenic systems. The model accounts for sub-pixel
land cover types, glacier and snow-pack accumulation/melt across
sub-pixel elevation bands, permafrost dynamics, anthropogenic water use
(e.g. domestic and industrial consumption, and irrigation for most of
existing crop types), hydro-infrastructure for inter-basin water
transfer and reservoir/dam regulations. To identify and quantify
contributions of individual drivers/factors to river flow we used a new
water source tracking capability recently developed in WBM. It allows
“fingerprinting” of water at all steps in the water cycle such as in
soils, groundwater pools, lakes, reservoirs, and fluxes such as
originated from snowmelt, rain, glacier runoff, and baseflow. By
comparing the difference in water component fractions in water storages
and fluxes resulting from multiple historical runs we were able to
quantify responses of each water source to the changes in climatic
drivers and to characterize causes of observed changes in river flow to
the Arctic Ocean. This work was mainly supported by Russian Foundation
for Basic Research, grants: 18-05-60192 and 18-05-60240.