FastFind »   Lastname: doi:10.1029/ Year: Advanced Search  

AGU: Geophysical Research Letters

 

Keywords

  • Pan-Arctic
  • freshwater discharge
  • GRACE

Index Terms

  • Hydrology: Streamflow
  • Hydrology: Remote sensing
  • Hydrology: Water budgets
  • Geodesy and Gravity: Time variable gravity
  • Hydrology: Hydrological cycles and budgets

Abstract

GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 34, L19404, 6 PP., 2007
doi:10.1029/2007GL031254

Contemporary estimates of Pan-Arctic freshwater discharge from GRACE and reanalysis

T. H. Syed

Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, California, USA

J. S. Famiglietti

Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, California, USA

V. Zlotnicki

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA

M. Rodell

Hydrologic Sciences Branch, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA

Streamflow from Arctic river basins has been increasing in recent decades in response to warming climate. In addition to being a sensitive indicator of global change, Arctic discharge is a critical component of the freshwater budget of the Arctic Ocean, where increasing freshwater flows may slow rates of North Atlantic Deep Water formation and heat transport by the thermohaline circulation. However, quantifying rates of freshwater discharge from the entire Pan-Arctic drainage has been troublesome using traditional stream gauging methods. Here we use satellite measurements of variations in continental water storage from the GRACE mission to present first estimates of monthly freshwater discharge from the entire Pan-Arctic for the period 2003–2005. Results show that rates of Pan-Arctic discharge for this time period (3588 ± 257 km3 yr−1) are significantly larger than those suggested by gauge-based estimates (3238 km3 yr−1), and furthermore, may indicate that discharge rates are accelerating.

Received 6 July 2007; accepted 11 September 2007; published 10 October 2007.

Citation: Syed, T. H., J. S. Famiglietti, V. Zlotnicki, and M. Rodell (2007), Contemporary estimates of Pan-Arctic freshwater discharge from GRACE and reanalysis, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L19404, doi:10.1029/2007GL031254.

Cited By

Please wait one moment ...