Life Sciences Commons^™

Pan-Arctic Distributions Of Continental Runoff In The Arctic Ocean, Cédric G. Fichot, Karl Kaiser, Stanford B. Hooker, Rainer M.W. Amon, Marcel Babin, Simon Bélanger, Sally A. Walker, Ronald Benner

Faculty Publications

Continental runoff is a major source of freshwater, nutrients and terrigenous material to the Arctic Ocean. As such, it influences water column stratification, light attenuation, surface heating, gas exchange, biological productivity and carbon sequestration. Increasing river discharge and thawing permafrost suggest that the impacts of continental runoff on these processes are changing. Here, a new optical proxy was developed and implemented with remote sensing to determine the first pan-Arctic distribution of terrigenous dissolved organic matter (tDOM) and continental runoff in the surface Arctic Ocean. Retrospective analyses revealed connections between the routing of North American runoff and the recent freshening of …