HR: 17:00h
AN: A24C-05 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: Land-to-Ocean Linkage in Eurasian Hydrological System
AU: * Vorosmarty, C J
EM: charles.vorosmarty@unh.edu
AF: University of New Hampshire, Water Systems Analysis Group Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, Durham, NH 03824 United States
AU: Lammers, R B
EM: richard.lammers@unh.edu
AF: University of New Hampshire, Water Systems Analysis Group Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, Durham, NH 03824 United States
AB: Northern Eurasia is a large and diverse region spanning land cover types from grassland/steppe to taiga forest to tundra. Understanding the interaction of these land cover types with the regional climate and hydrologic cycle is essential for understanding the system as a whole. We investigate how the northern flowing river networks over the NEESPI domain play a critical role in connecting and combining the diverse land cover types throughout the full range in latitudes which progress as far south as 45 degrees N. To provide this hydrological perspective we employ a digital river network, STN-EASE, at 25x25km grid cell resolution created specifically for high latitude hydrological analysis. The river network provides the fundamental framework for synthesis studies based on a broad suite of measures of system behavior. Along the network these deal with in-stream travel distance, river order, and hydrological contributions of major land cover types. At basin outlets these include river discharge and aggregate totals of key hydrologic variables. The taiga forests of Northern Eurasia are the dominant land cover type in the Arctic Ocean drainage of northern Eurasia. However, when viewed through the hydrological lens we find these taiga forests play an even greater role in terms of runoff generation than would be expected by area measures alone. This suggests that the northern forests are an important feature of the Arctic as well as the global climate system and a potentially important focal point in Arctic system change.
DE: 9315 Arctic region
DE: 9320 Asia
DE: 1833 Hydroclimatology
DE: 1848 Networks
DE: 1860 Runoff and streamflow
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting