Climate change impacts on streamflow, sediment load and carbon fluxes in the Lena River delta

Autor: Sergey Chalov, Kristina Prokopeva, Dmitry Magritsky, Vadim Grigoriev, Evgeniya Fingert, Michal Habel, Bennet Juhls, Anne Morgenstern, Pier Paul Overduin, Nikolay Kasimov
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2023
Předmět:
Zdroj: Ecological Indicators, Vol 157, Iss , Pp 111252- (2023)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 1470-160X
DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2023.111252
Popis: Water and sediment supply are essential to the health of deltaic ecosystems. Diverse datasets were integrated to better understand how climate change is shifting the supply of water and sediment to the largest polar distributary channel pattern – the Lena River Delta. Here the increase in warming rate from an average air temperature is from 4.1 °C for the period 1950–99 to 6.1 °C during 2000–21, which is higher than in the adjacent polar regions. Streamflow and sediment yield entering the Lena Delta have increased since 1988 by 56.3 km3 and 6.1×106 t, respectively; meanwhile, the Lena River’s increases in water temperature in June, July–August and September were found to be as much as 1.1, 0.6 and 0.05 °C. These changes have a pronounced effect on sediment regimes in particular parts of the delta. Based on analyses of correlations between various hydroclimatic drivers and sediment concentration changes across particular distributaries of the Lena Delta extracted from Landsat datasets, bank degradation driven by thermal erosional processes (which are in turn related to air and soil temperature increases) is proved to be the primary factor of the sediment regime in the delta. The study also highlights that sediment load changes are sensitive to wind speed due to remobilization of bottom sediment. Sums of daily air temperature and wind speed over 3 days are correlated with sediment concentration changes in the delta. The results also indicate that carbon transport across the delta (both POC and DOC) depends on sediment transport conditions and water discharge and might increase by up to 10 %. We conclude that the Lena Delta can be recognized as the global hot spot in terms of the hydrological consequences of climate change, which is altering sediment regimes, stream hydromorphology and carbon transport.
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