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Hydroclimatology of the Arctic Drainage Basin

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The Freshwater Budget of the Arctic Ocean

Part of the book series: NATO Science Series ((ASEN2,volume 70))

Abstract

By most estimates, runoff from the land surface represents the single largest input of freshwater to the Arctic Ocean. Alekseev and Buzuev [1] estimated the total freshwater input to the Arctic Ocean to be between 4300 and 6475 km3/year based on ice formation data. Treshnikov [2] (reported in [3]) estimated the total freshwater flux from gauged land surface areas to be 3300 km3/yr, or 51 to 77 percent of the total from [1]. Grabs et al. [4] report that the accumulated sum of mean annual flow from the 35 largest gauged Arctic basins is approximately 202 mm/yr (2603 km3). When extrapolated to the entire land area draining to the Arctic (approximately 19,300,000 km2), this yields a total annual freshwater flux from the land surface of approximately 4000 km3, or between 62 and 93% of the total freshwater input as estimated from [1]. Another estimate of total freshwater flux from land areas into the Arctic Ocean is 4269 km3/year, with 17 and 24% attributed to ungauged discharge from islands and mainland, respectively [5].

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  1. Department of Civil Engineering, University of Washington, Box 352700, Seattle, WA, 98195, USA

    L. C. Bowling, D. P. Lettenmaier & B. V. Matheussen

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  1. L. C. Bowling
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  2. D. P. Lettenmaier
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Ocean Sciences, Sidney, B.C., Canada

    Edward Lyn Lewis (Emeritus) (Emeritus)

  2. Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Darthmouth, N.S., Canada

    E. Peter Jones

  3. Institute of Marine Research, Kiel, Germany

    Peter Lemke (Professor of Meteorology) (Professor of Meteorology)

  4. National Water Research Institute, Saskatoon, Sk., Canada

    Terry D. Prowse

  5. Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge, UK

    Peter Wadhams (Reader in Polar Studies) (Reader in Polar Studies)

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Bowling, L.C., Lettenmaier, D.P., Matheussen, B.V. (2000). Hydroclimatology of the Arctic Drainage Basin. In: Lewis, E.L., Jones, E.P., Lemke, P., Prowse, T.D., Wadhams, P. (eds) The Freshwater Budget of the Arctic Ocean. NATO Science Series, vol 70. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4132-1_4

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