Rising stream and river temperatures in the United States

Abstract

Water temperatures are increasing in many streams and rivers throughout the US. We analyzed historical records from 40 sites and found that 20 major streams and rivers have shown statistically significant, long‐term warming. Annual mean water temperatures increased by 0.009–0.077°C yr−1, and rates of warming were most rapid in, but not confined to, urbanizing areas. Long‐term increases in stream water temperatures were typically correlated with increases in air temperatures. If stream temperatures were to continue to increase at current rates, due to global warming and urbanization, this could have important effects on eutrophication, ecosystem processes such as biological productivity and stream metabolism, contaminant toxicity, and loss of aquatic biodiversity.

Influence of watershed‐climate interactions on stream temperature, sediment yield, and metabolism along a land use intensity gradient in Indonesian Borneo

“…Like numerous previous studies [Brown, 1969;Kaushal et al, 2010;Mohseni and Stefan, 1999], we found that air temperature is correlated with water temperature. However, air temperature has low variability in this (Table S3).…”

Rising air and stream-water temperatures in Chesapeake Bay region, USA

“…The irregular-interval WT data are not ideal but also are not unique to our study (see Kaushal et al 2010 on-line materials). We analyzed the limitations of such data by two methods and the results were consistent.…”

“…Previous work on WT trends in the mid-Atlantic region of the eastern USA indicates warming streams. Kaushal et al (2010) report that most streams examined in the midAtlantic region have statistically significant increasing WT trends. Seekell and Pace (2011) analyzed 100-year AT and WT records for the Hudson River Estuary, New York, and found statistically significant increasing trends in both.…”

“…at regional (e.g., Mohseni et al 1999;Webb and Nobilis 2007;Kaushal et al 2010;Isaak et al 2012) as well as global scales (van Vliet et al 2011). The literature reflects disagreement regarding the control of air temperature (AT) on WT.…”

“…Seekell and Pace (2011) analyzed 100-year AT and WT records for the Hudson River Estuary, New York, and found statistically significant increasing trends in both. Limitations of the previous work in the mid-Atlantic region are that datasets of inconsistent length were used (Kaushal et al 2010), which confounds comparison of results across sites (Schertz et al 1991), or the work included only one site (Seekell and Pace 2011). The impending deleterious effects of rising WT on Chesapeake Bay water quality suggest that a more focused analysis of WT trends across the CBW and the physical characteristics that could mitigate or exacerbate those trends is needed.…”