Large sinuous rivers are slowing down in a warming Arctic | Nature Climate Change

Large sinuous rivers are slowing down in a warming Arctic | Nature Climate Change
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Subjects
Geomorphology
Hydrology
Riparian ecology
Abstract
Arctic regions are disproportionately affected by atmospheric warming, with cascading effects on multiple surface processes. Atmospheric warming is destabilizing permafrost, which could weaken riverbanks and in turn increase the lateral mobility of their channels. Here, using timelapse analysis of satellite imagery, we show that the lateral migration of large Arctic sinuous rivers has decreased by about 20% over the last half-century, at a mean rate of 3.7‰ per year. Through a comparison with rivers in non-permafrost regions, we hypothesize that the observed migration slowdown is rooted in a series of indirect effects driven by atmospheric warming, such as bank shrubification and decline in overland flow and seepage discharge along channel banks, linked in turn to permafrost thaw. As lower migration rates directly impact the residence timescales of sediment and organic matter in floodplains, these surprising results may lead to important ramifications for watershed-scale carbon budgets and climate feedbacks.
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Fig. 1: Physiographic and hydroclimatic setting of studied rivers.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.
Fig. 2: Lateral migration rates.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.
Fig. 3: Conceptual evolution from cold to warming states in large Arctic rivers.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.
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Data availability
Hydrologic and meteorological data are accessible through the National Centres for Environmental Information Climate Monitoring (monthly climate reports for monthly mean temperature and precipitation available at
), the United States Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Information System (monthly mean discharge available at
) and the Government of Canada Real-Time Hydrometric and Historical Climate Data (monthly mean discharge available at
) web portals. Satellite imagery is accessible through the USGS EarthExplorer (Landsat 1 to 8 collections available at
) and GloVis (Landsat 1 to 8 collections available at
) web portals. Channel bank lines and polygons digitized by the authors for this study are available in Zenodo archives at
(ref.
56
).
Code availability
Codes used to analyse data are available in a GitHub repository at
ref.
61
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Acknowledgements
A.I. and P.R.-L. are supported by Discovery grants (RGPIN-2016-5720 and RGPIN-2022-05077, respectively) from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Resource Council of Canada. P.R.-L. is also supported by the Sentinel North program of Université Laval, funded by the Canada First Research Excellence Fund.
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Authors and Affiliations
Department of Earth, Environmental and Geographic Sciences, University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada
Alessandro Ielpi
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Mathieu G. A. Lapôtre
Department of Geosciences, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
Alvise Finotello
Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy
Alvise Finotello
Centre d’études nordiques, Université Laval, Québec, Québec, Canada
Pascale Roy-Léveillée
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A.I. conceived the study, its methodology, visualization and original drafting of the text, figures and tables. A.I., M.G.A.L., A.F. and P.R.-L. jointly developed the data analysis, writing and reviewing of following drafts.
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Migration time-series analysis, curvature analysis, shrub-front advance, Supplementary references, Figs. 1–5, Tables 1–4 and Data 1 and 2.
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Ielpi, A., Lapôtre, M.G.A., Finotello, A.
et al.
Large sinuous rivers are slowing down in a warming Arctic.
Nat. Clim. Chang.
13
, 375–381 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01620-9
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Received
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