Horizontal Carbon Fluxes in the Land-Sea System

Abstract

The estimation of the values of riverine runoff, sediment (particulate matter) runoff, that of carbon and other nutrients, the more so of their mean annual values represents a difficult task. Under the severe conditions of the Arctic, the difficulties increase manifold. This is related to a series of reasons, among which the principal, in a to the severe climatic conditions, are the strong spatiotemporal variability of the runoff intensity and its composition under the influence of various natural and anthropogenic factors, nonlinear and variable in time (Naidenov and Shveikina 1999; Savel’eva et al. 2000; Holmes et al. 2002). This determines the importance of development of nonlinear dynamical models (for example, for the surface and underground runoff) and the necessity of availability of series of instrumental observations in different seasons obtained with modern intercalibrated facilities or, at least, following compatible techniques. At present, there are no commonly accepted methods for monitoring, which could be applied at the existing gauging stations; this interannual an additional factor complicating the estimates of the mean values of water runoff and its composition. Along with this, the climatic change predicted to occur in the 21st century should first affect the runoff of the Arctic rivers and, in this regard, the importance of the evaluation of the water runoff and its composition still more increases (Gramberg et al. 2000; Houghton et al. 2001; Mogilevkin et al. 2002).