Journal
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
Volume 12, Issue 1, Pages -Publisher
NATURE RESEARCH
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-21759-3
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Funding
- Government of Canada International Polar Year (IPY)
- Natural Resources and Engineering Council (NSERC)
- ArcticNet
- Hamlet of Resolute
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Climate warming is causing Arctic annual fluvial energy budgets to shift from snowmelt-dominated to snowmelt- and rainfall-dominated hydrological regimes, enhancing late summer and fall terrestrial-aquatic connectivity and higher material fluxes. Increased late summer rainfall enhances terrestrial-aquatic connectivity, but permafrost disturbances can reduce some organic carbon export.
Hydrological transformations induced by climate warming are causing Arctic annual fluvial energy to shift from skewed (snowmelt-dominated) to multimodal (snowmelt- and rainfall-dominated) distributions. We integrated decade-long hydrometeorological and biogeochemical data from the High Arctic to show that shifts in the timing and magnitude of annual discharge patterns and stream power budgets are causing Arctic material transfer regimes to undergo fundamental changes. Increased late summer rainfall enhanced terrestrial-aquatic connectivity for dissolved and particulate material fluxes. Permafrost disturbances (<3% of the watersheds' areal extent) reduced watershed-scale dissolved organic carbon export, offsetting concurrent increased export in undisturbed watersheds. To overcome the watersheds' buffering capacity for transferring particulate material (309 Watt), rainfall events had to increase by an order of magnitude, indicating the landscape is primed for accelerated geomorphological change when future rainfall magnitudes and consequent pluvial responses exceed the current buffering capacity of the terrestrial-aquatic continuum. Climate warming is causing annual Arctic fluvial energy budgets to shift seasonality from snowmelt-dominated to snowmelt- and rainfall-dominated hydrological regimes, enhancing late summer and fall terrestrial-aquatic connectivity and higher material fluxes.
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