Abstracts for the 5th International GAME Conf.
3-5 October 2001
Aichi Trade Center
Nagoya Japan
Siberian Major River Streamflow Regime and Recent Change
Daqing Yang (1), Douglas L. Kane (1), Larry D. Hinzman (1), Xuebin Zhang (4), Tetsuo Ohata (5)
(1) University of Alaska Fairbanks, AK 99775-5860, USA
(4) Meteorological Service of Canada
(5) Institute of Low Temperature Science
The long-term streamflow records of the Lena, Yenesei and Ob rivers have been analyzed in this study to examine the runoff regime and recent change. During the recent decades, a significant increase (25-110%) in fall and winter streamflow at the basin outlets has been detected for all the three rivers. A remarkable shift of Ob river's maximum monthly discharge from spring snowmelt period towards summer season has also been discovered. This tendency of summer peak streamflow may indicate a response of river systems to intensified summer rainfall activities over west Siberia. In addition, a decrease of river ice thickness has been found for the Lena river. The magnitudes of changes identified by this study are large enough to impact the discharge seasonality. We believe that these changes are very likely the consequence of recent climate warming over the Siberian regions and also closely related to change in permafrost. Warming in Siberia results in higher permafrost temperatures and a deeper active layer. The thicker active layer, having a greater ground water storage capacity, in fact, has more ground water storage amount due to melt of ground ice and increased precipitation input. This increased ground water storage in turn results in greater contribution of subsurface water to the river systems and hence increases the winter season runoff.
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Univ. of Alaska Fairbanks | |
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