Going with the flow: Hydrologic response of middle Lena River (Siberia) to the climate variability and change

Gautier, Emmanuèle; Dépret, Thomas; Costard, F.; Virmoux, Clément; Fedorov, A.A.; Grancher, Delphine; Konstantinov, Pavel

doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2017.12.034

Cited by 42 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Model evaluation metrics based on squared values like the root mean square error (RMSE) are known to be biased and highly sensitive to outliers (Willmott and Matsuura, 2005;Willmott et al, 2015). Statistical significance was calculated using the Mann-Kendall test statistic (Hamed and Rao, 1998;Yue et al, 2002), with a 95 % confidence level (p < 0.05) designated as statistically significant. Time changes are estimated with a general linear model (GLM).…”

Section: Hydrological Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Time changes are estimated with a general linear model (GLM). We applied the modified Mann-Kendall test (Hamed and Rao, 1998) for terrestrial water storage (TWS) and its component storages of snow (water equivalent), soil liquid water, and ice amounts. A one or a two-sided test was used depending on whether the direction of change was assumed.…”

Section: Hydrological Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Changing characteristics of runoff and freshwater export from watersheds draining northern Alaska

et al. 2019

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Abstract. The quantity and quality of river discharge in Arctic regions is influenced by many processes including climate, watershed attributes and, increasingly, hydrological cycle intensification and permafrost thaw. We used a hydrological model to quantify baseline conditions and investigate the changing character of hydrological elements for Arctic watersheds between Utqiagvik (formerly known as Barrow)) and just west of Mackenzie River over the period 1981–2010. A synthesis of measurements and model simulations shows that the region exports 31.9 km3 yr−1 of freshwater via river discharge, with 55.5 % (17.7 km3 yr−1) coming collectively from the Colville, Kuparuk, and Sagavanirktok rivers. The simulations point to significant (p<0.05) increases (134 %–212 % of average) in cold season discharge (CSD) for several large North Slope rivers including the Colville and Kuparuk, and for the region as a whole. A significant increase in the proportion of subsurface runoff to total runoff is noted for the region and for 24 of the 42 study basins, with the change most prevalent across the northern foothills of the Brooks Range. Relatively large increases in simulated active-layer thickness (ALT) suggest a physical connection between warming climate, permafrost degradation, and increasing subsurface flow to streams and rivers. A decline in terrestrial water storage (TWS) is attributed to losses in soil ice that outweigh gains in soil liquid water storage. Over the 30-year period, the timing of peak spring (freshet) discharge shifts earlier by 4.5 d, though the time trend is only marginally (p=0.1) significant. These changing characteristics of Arctic rivers have important implications for water, carbon, and nutrient cycling in coastal environments.

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Section: Hydrological Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Hydrological Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changing characteristics of runoff and freshwater export from watersheds draining northern Alaska

et al. 2019

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“…The high latitudes experience pronounced climate change, for example, in the form of warming air temperatures and precipitation regime shifts (Cohen et al, 2018). This manifests in far-reaching impacts on the livelihoods of permafrost communities (Crate et al, 2017), hydrological systems (Gautier et al, 2018;Karlsson et al, 2012;Prowse et al, 2010;Vey et al, 2013;Walvoord and Striegl, 2007;Yang et al, 2002), the evolution of permafrost, including changes in landforms (Boike et al, 2016) and 40 feedbacks with the global carbon cycle (Beermann et al, 2017;Hope and Schaefer, 2016;Schuur et al, 2015). The Lena River catchment in Eastern Siberia is one of the largest watersheds in Siberia and provides a major contribution to the Arctic Ocean.…”

Section: Introduction 35mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…;Walvoord and Kurylyk, 2016). The impacted hydrological cycle already shows a systematic shift towards an increase in the intensity and duration of floods, higher frequency of large floods, and disappearing small floods (Gautier et al, 2018). More changes in the hydrological regime can be expected in the future through geomorphological changes, especially the formation of thermokarst lakes (Fedorov et al, 2014a;.…”

Section: Introduction 35mentioning

confidence: 99%

Emerging climate signals in the Lena River catchment: a non-parametric statistical approach

Pohl¹,

Grenier²,

Vrac³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Abstract. Climate change has far-reaching implications in permafrost-underlain landscapes with respect to hydrology, ecosystems and the population’s traditional livelihoods. In the Lena River catchment, Eastern Siberia, changing climatic conditions and the associated impacts are already observed or expected. However, as climate change progresses the question remains as to how far we are along this track and when these changes will constitute a significant emergence from natural variability. Here we present an approach to investigate temperature and precipitation time series from observational records, reanalysis, and an ensemble of 65 climate model simulations forced by the RCP8.5 emission scenario. We focus on the Lena River catchment, where significant environmental changes are already apparent. We developed a novel non-parametric statistical method to identify the time of emergence (ToE) of climate change signals, i.e. the time when a climate signal permanently exceeds its natural variability. The method is based on the Hellinger distance metric that measures the similarity of probability density functions (PDFs) roughly corresponding to their geometrical overlap. Natural variability is estimated as PDF for the earliest period common to all datasets used in the study (1901–1921) and is then compared to PDFs of target periods with moving windows of 21 years at annual and seasonal scale. The method yields dissimilarities or emergence levels ranging from 0 to 100 % and the direction of change as continuous time series itself. For the Lena River catchment, on average, emergence of temperature has a strong onset in the 1970s with a monotonic increase thereafter for validated reanalysis data. At the end of the reanalysis dataset (2004), temperature distributions have emerged by 50–60 %. Climate model projections suggest the same evolution on average and 90 % emergence by 2040. For precipitation the analysis is less conclusive because of high uncertainties in existing reanalysis datasets that also impede an evaluation of the climate models. Model projections suggest hardly any emergence by 2000 but a strong emergence thereafter, reaching 60 % by the end of the investigated period (2089). The presented ToE method provides more versatility than traditional parametric approaches and allows for a detailed temporal analysis of climate signal evolutions. An original strategy to select the most realistic model simulations based on the available observational data significantly reduces the uncertainties resulting from the spread in the 65 climate models used. The method comes as a toolbox available at https://github.com/pohleric/toe_tools.

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“…However, external forces such as climate change [3][4][5][6][7][8] or human intervention [1,5,[9][10][11][12][13] tend to create conditions of disequilibrium. The impact of climate change on rivers and river systems has been widely investigated in recent decades [8,[14][15][16][17][18][19]. Likewise, several studies have been conducted on the various human impacts on rivers [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Morphological Evolution of the Lower Tisza River (Hungary) in the 20th Century in Response to Human Interventions

Amissah

Kiss

Fiala³

2018

Water

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To understand the hydro-morphological responses of a river to engineering works is a key to future sustainable engineering projects. The Tisza River in the Carpathian Basin has been the subject of human interventions in the 19th-20th centuries, with regular monitoring since the first intervention. Therefore, it provides a unique opportunity to understand the long-term responses of a lowland river on engineering works. Here the interventions include the construction of embanked levees, artificial meander cutoffs, construction of revetments and groynes, and construction of lock-dams, whose differing effects can be analysed in detail. The Lower Tisza River, Hungary was shortened by up to a third of its 89-km length during late-19th-century regulation works. Simultaneously, it was disconnected from its 10-20 km wide natural floodplain, which was restricted to 1-5 km. Revetments were constructed along 25% of the banks since the early 20th century. This paper evaluates the effects of these regulation works on the Lower Tisza channel based on channel-surveys (1891, 1931, 1961, 1976 and 1999). Based on the results, the channel responded to every stage of the regulation works by adjusting its cross-sectional area, thalweg depth and bankfull width. From 1891 to 1961, the cross-sectional area of the channel increased in response to the artificial meander cutoffs through rapid incision and channel widening. The construction of revetments and groynes distorted this morphological development. After their construction, the cross-sectional area of the channel reduced by up to 50% between 1961 and 1976. The channel experienced incision and narrowing within this period. Whilst the morphological response of the river to cutoffs was improved flood conveyance, the revetments drastically decreased the flood conveyance; therefore, the flood levels increased without an increase in discharge, so the revetment constructions indirectly increased the flood risk.

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Going with the flow: Hydrologic response of middle Lena River (Siberia) to the climate variability and change

Cited by 42 publications

References 44 publications

Changing characteristics of runoff and freshwater export from watersheds draining northern Alaska

Changing characteristics of runoff and freshwater export from watersheds draining northern Alaska

Emerging climate signals in the Lena River catchment: a non-parametric statistical approach

Morphological Evolution of the Lower Tisza River (Hungary) in the 20th Century in Response to Human Interventions

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