Publikationsdatum:
2016-08-09
Beschreibung:
The Mackenzie River, Canada's longest and largest river system, provides the greatest Western Hemisphere discharge to the Arctic Ocean. Recent reports of declining flows have prompted concern because (1) this influences Arctic Ocean salinity, stratification, and polar ice; (2) a major tributary, the Peace River, has large hydroelectric projects and further dams are proposed; and (3) the system includes the extensive and biodiverse Peace-Athabasca, Slave and Mackenzie deltas. To assess hydrological trends over the past century that could reflect climate change, we analyzed historic patterns of river discharges. We expanded the data series by infilling for short gaps; calculating annual discharges from early summer-only records (typical r 2 〉 0.9); coordinating data from sequential hydrometric gauges (requiring r 2 〉 0.8); and advancing the data to 2013. For trend detection, Pearson correlation provided similar outcomes to non-parametric Kendall τ and Spearman ρ tests. There was no overall pattern for annual flows of the most southerly Athabasca River (1913-2013) while the adjacent, regulated Peace River displayed increasing flows (1916-2013, p 〈 0.05). These rivers combine to form the Slave River, which did not display an overall trend (1917-2013). The more northerly, free-flowing Liard River, is the largest tributary and displayed increasing annual flows (1944-2013, p 〈 0.01, ~3.5% per decade) due to increasing winter, spring and summer flows, and annual maximum and minimum flows also increased. Following from the tributary contributions, the Mackenzie River flows gradually increased (Fort Simpson 1939-2013, p 〈 0.05, ~1.5% per decade), but the interannual patterns for the Liard and other rivers were correlated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), complicating the pattern. This conclusion of increasing river flows to the Arctic Ocean contrasts with some prior reports, based on shorter time series. The observed flow increase is consistent with increasing discharges of the large Eurasian Arctic drainages, suggesting a common northern response to climate change. Analyses of historic trends are strengthened with lengthening records and with the PDO influence we recommend century-long records for northern rivers.
Print ISSN:
0885-6087
Digitale ISSN:
1099-1085
Thema:
Architektur, Bauingenieurwesen, Vermessung
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Geographie
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