Extended Data Table 1 Characteristics of the six largest Arctic watersheds

From: Recent trends in the chemistry of major northern rivers signal widespread Arctic change

 

Watershed Area

Area at gauge

Distance to Arctic Oceana

Mean dischargeb (2003-2019)

Runoff (2003-2019)

Permafrostc

Continuous Permafrostc

Discontinuous Permafrostc

Tundrad

Forestd

Regulatede

Mean annual temperature (2003-2019)f

Mean annual precipitation (2003-2019)f

Population Densityg

 

106 km2

106 km2

km

km3 y-1

mm y-1

(% area)

(% area)

(% area)

(% area)

(% area)

(% area)

°C

mm y-1

people km-2

Ob’

2.99

2.95

287

409

139

26

2

4

0.1

48.2

14.6

-0.7

604

9.07

Yenisey

2.54

2.44

433 (697)

595

244

88

33

11

0.5

67.9

50.5

-4.4

619

2.85

Lena

2.46

2.43

754 (211)

599

247

99

79

11

1.2

62.5

7.2

-8.9

548

0.45

Kolyma

0.65

0.53

120 (283)

108

205

100

100

0

3.2

16.7

18.9

-10.7

546

0.2

Yukon

0.83

0.83

200

211

254

99

23

66

0.1

68.4

0.0

-4.8

571

0.17

Mackenzie

1.78

1.68

260

295

176

82

16

29

0.0

74.2

4.3

-3.6

547

0.25

Sum

11.25

–

 

2,217

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

Pan-Arctich

16.8

–

–

~3710i

~220

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

  1. aDistance from the water chemistry station (discharge gauge) to the Arctic Ocean, including transit distance through river mouth deltas. Where only one value is presented, water chemistry and discharge data collection are co-located. Data for Russian rivers are from the Hydrometeorological Service of the USSR77. Data for North American rivers are estimated from Google Earth.
  2. bMean annual discharge over the study period.
  3. cFrom Holmes et al. (2013)78. Permafrost extent and classification from the International Permafrost Association’s Circum-Arctic Map of Permafrost and Ground Ice Conditions.
  4. dVegetation classes from the 20-class GLDAS/NOAH product79, based on a 30 arc second MODIS vegetation data that uses a modified IGBP classification scheme. Tundra is the sum of mixed and bare ground tundra. Forest is the sum of evergreen, deciduous, and mixed forest, and wooded tundra.
  5. eRegulated area at the end of the study period, from Lehner et al. (2011)80. Includes impoundments that were completed on the Kolyma (2013) and Yenisey (2012) rivers.
  6. fMean annual temperature and precipitation from the MERRA2 reanalysis product81.
  7. gPopulation density from the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (2018)82 gridded population of the world.
  8. hWatershed area of 16.8 x 106 km2 corresponds to the area demarcated in Figure 1, which does not include drainage to Hudson Bay. The pan-Arctic watershed including Hudson Bay, but excluding the Greenland Ice Cap, covers an area of 22.4 x 106 km2 (from Lammers et al. [2001]83).
  9. IEstimate derived from Shiklomanov et al. (2021)24, for the period covering 1980-2018.
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