Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Arctic Climate and Water Change: Model
and Observation Relevance for Assessment
and Adaptation
Arvid Bring
Georgia Destouni
•
Received: 15 February 2013 / Accepted: 14 November 2013 / Published online: 24 December 2013
The Author(s) 2013. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Abstract The Arctic is subject to growing economic and political interest. Meanwhile, its
climate and water systems are in rapid transformation. In this paper, we review and extend
a set of studies on climate model results, hydro-climatic change, and hydrological moni-
toring systems. Results indicate that general circulation model (GCM) projections of
drainage basin temperature and precipitation have improved between two model genera-
tions. However, some inaccuracies remain for precipitation projections. When considering
geographical priorities for monitoring or adaptation efforts, our results indicate that future
projections by GCMs and recent observations diverge regarding the basins where tem-
perature and precipitation changes currently are the most pronounced and where they will
be so in the future. Regarding late twentieth-century discharge changes in major Arctic
rivers, data generally show excess of water relative to precipitation changes. This indicates
a possible contribution to sea-level rise of river water that was previously stored in per-
mafrost or groundwater. The river contribution to the increasing Arctic Ocean freshwater
inflow is similar in magnitude to the separate contribution from glaciers, which underlines
the importance of considering all possible sources of freshwater when assessing sea-level
change. We further investigate monitoring systems and find a lack of harmonized water
chemistry data, which limits the ability to understand the origin and transport of nutrients,
carbon and sediment to the sea. To provide adequate information for research and policy,
Arctic hydrological and hydrochemical monitoring needs to be extended, better integrated
and made more accessible. Further water-focused data and modeling efforts are required to
resolve the source of excess discharge in Arctic rivers. Finally, improvements in climate
model parameterizations are needed, in particular for precipitation projections.
Keywords
Hydrology
Monitoring
Arctic
Climate change
Adaptation
