Arctic Change - Land: Rivers

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[an error occurred while processing this directive] OVERVIEW

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CLIMATE

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[an error occurred while processing this directive] Surface Temps
[an error occurred while processing this directive] Stratospheric Temps
[an error occurred while processing this directive] Clouds
[an error occurred while processing this directive] Ocean

GLOBAL

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[an error occurred while processing this directive] Ocean Overturning

LAND

[an error occurred while processing this directive] Roads
[an error occurred while processing this directive] Permafrost
[an error occurred while processing this directive] Tundra
[an error occurred while processing this directive] Rivers
[an error occurred while processing this directive] Waterfowl
[an error occurred while processing this directive] Caribou

MARINE ECOSYSTEM

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[an error occurred while processing this directive] Bering Sea
[an error occurred while processing this directive] Barents Sea
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ICE

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[an error occurred while processing this directive] Glaciers
[an error occurred while processing this directive] Snow Cover

HUMAN

[an error occurred while processing this directive] Socio-economic
[an error occurred while processing this directive] Shishmaref
[an error occurred while processing this directive] Marine Access
[an error occurred while processing this directive] Canadian Marine
[an error occurred while processing this directive] Roads

Land - Rivers

See the River Discharge section of the annually updated Arctic Report Card

The Arctic Ocean receives a large amount of fresh water from river runoff relative to its area, compared to other oceans. There are five major rivers that flow into the Arctic, the Mackenzie and Yukon in North America, and the three largest in Asia, the Ob, Yenisey and Lena Rivers.

From the 2015 Arctic Report Card:

Annual discharge of Lena, Ob and Yenisey Rivers

Long-term records of annual discharge for Eurasian and North American Arctic rivers. The Eurasian rivers are the Severnaya Dvina, Pechora, Ob', Yenisey, Lena, and Kolyma. The North American rivers are the Yukon and Mackenzie. Note the different scales for the Eurasian and North American river discharge; discharge from the former is 3-4 times greater than it is from the latter. The horizontal lines show long-term mean discharge values for the Eurasian (1,809 km3 y-1) and North American (493 km3 y-1) rivers

Map showing the watersheds of the eight rivers featured in this report. Together they cover 70% of the 16.8 x 106 km2 pan-Arctic watershed. The red dots show the location of the discharge monitoring stations and the red line shows the boundary of the pan-Arctic watershed.

The Ob and Yenisey Rivers show an increase since the 1980s. Discharge from the six largest Asian rivers increased by 7% from 1936 to 1999. [Peterson, et. al., 2002, Science].

Annual discharge of Lena, Ob and Yenisey Rivers. Data from the ArcticRIMS database and R-ArcticNET database. Click for larger image.

Arctic river basins map from the Arctic Great Rivers Observatory. Click to see larger image. Also available is an alternate map of river basins from the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment Report.

Find more information (references and websites):

Arctic Great Rivers Observatory
A Regional Integrated Hydrological Monitoring System for the Pan-Arctic Land Mass, including relevance to the larger Earth System, from ArcticRIMS at the University of New Hampshire.
The Science of Global Hydrology from the Water Systems Analysis Group at the University of New Hampshire.