Water samples from rivers in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, 2014

The investigators will target seven rivers for sampling. River sampling will occur during different flow regimes, but will emphasize sample collection during the spring freshet, the time of year when terrestrial runoff from local Canadian Arctic Archipelago (CAA) rivers maximally impacts coastal waters. Estuarine sampling will include both horizontal and vertical profiles. The data will be synthesized and interpreted using mixing models and regression analyses, and compared with data for the Mackenzie and Yukon Rivers, which have historically been considered "typical" for North American runoff to the Arctic. Acceleration of glacial melt and the hydrologic cycle in a warmer world will likely increase local inputs of freshwater to the CAA. Because many such changes may already be underway, it is important to establish a baseline by which future changes can be compared. The proposed research has implications regarding the variability and magnitude of freshwater export from the Arctic and subarctic oceans to the North Atlantic, and the findings will help fill significant gaps in the knowledge of CAA river geochemistry and the Arctic freshwater cycle.