Influences of shifts in climate, landscape, and permafrost on terrestrial hydrology

Abstract

[1] This study has simulated the terrestrial hydrology associated with different climate, landscape, and permafrost regime scenarios for the field case example of the relatively well characterized coastal catchment of Forsmark, Sweden. The regime scenarios were selected from long-term simulation results of climate, topographical, shoreline, and associated Quaternary deposit and vegetation development in this catchment with a time perspective of 100,000 years or more and were used as drivers for hydrological simulations with the three-dimensional model MIKE SHE. The hydrological simulations quantify the responses of different water flow and water storage components of terrestrial hydrology to shifts from the present cool temperate climate landscape regime in Forsmark to a possible future Arctic periglacial landscape regime with or without permafrost. The results show complexity and nonlinearity in the runoff responses to precipitation changes due to parallel changes in evapotranspiration, along with changes in surface and subsurface water storage dynamics and flow pathways through the landscape. The results further illuminate different possible perspectives of what constitutes wetter/drier landscape conditions, in contrast to the clearer concept of what constitutes a warmer/colder climate.

Thermokarst lake, hydrological flow and water balance indicators of permafrost change in Western Siberia

“…More specifically, the water stored in a basin includes all water that enters but does not leave the basin in a given annual cycle and can include various stores, such as surface water (river, lakes, and wetlands), soil moisture and ground ice, and shallow and deep groundwater. In arctic and subarctic landscapes, changes in water storage may be attributed to different internal basin alterations and interconnected processes (Bosson et al, 2012). These include permafrost degradation that can change water connectivity across the landscape, for example, due to the development of open taliks that influence the distribution of subsurface flow paths and can allow surface waters to drain and/or connect differently to groundwater, or to changes in flow interactions of intra-permafrost groundwater (i.e., groundwater in between and that resulting from thawing of ice-rich permafrost layers).…”

Subsurface release and transport of dissolved carbon in a discontinuous permafrost region

“…The subsurface pathways of water flow in many arctic environments are determined by permafrost characteristics and ground ice distributions in the landscape (Carey and Woo, 2001;Framton et al, 2011;Sjöberg et al, 2013;Bosson et al, 2012). As such, the terrestrial freshwater cycle in the Arctic is intimately coupled with the existence of permafrost.…”

Predictive Contributions of Snowmelt and Rainfall to Streamflow Variations in the Western United States

“…Conversely, Bosson et al [24] thought that earlier snowmelt might contribute more to evapotranspiration (ET) than to streamflow because of the increased vapor pressure deficit due to atmospheric warming, which would result in a lower-than-usual springtime streamflow. Recent findings by Trujillo and Molotch [25] indicated that reduced levels of solar radiation available for driving snowmelt earlier in the year could produce slower rates of snowmelt and decrease the generation of streamflow during the spring.…”