Observations of changes in surface water over the western Siberia lowland

[1] We analyse the evolution of the fraction of water surface (FWS), derived by SSM/I between 1988 and 2002 over the Western Siberia Lowland. This whole region exhibits an increase in the amount of FWS that is in agreement with the observed trends of the Ob river discharge and precipitation. However, a similar increasing trend is not found over the most important wetland area of Sibirskie Uvaly Hills located in a region of sporadic permafrost. These observations support the hypothesis that climate warming in discontinuous permafrost environments may lead to a reduction of small lakes and wetland areas.

[1]  Walter C. Oechel,et al.  Recent change of Arctic tundra ecosystems from a net carbon dioxide sink to a source , 1993, Nature.

[2]  Robert Leconte,et al.  Flood monitoring over the Mackenzie River Basin using passive microwave data , 2005 .

[3]  T. D. Mitchell,et al.  A comprehensive set of high-resolution grids of monthly climate for Europe and the globe: the observed record (1901-2000) and 16 scenarios (2001-2100). , 2004 .

[4]  Catherine Prigent,et al.  Global maps of microwave land surface emissivities: Potential for land surface characterization , 1998 .

[5]  D. Kane,et al.  Compatibility analysis of precipitation and runoff trends over the large Siberian watersheds , 2004 .

[6]  T. Pavelsky,et al.  Intercomparison of four global precipitation data sets and their correlation with increased Eurasian river discharge to the Arctic Ocean , 2006 .

[7]  Richard B. Lammers,et al.  Increasing River Discharge to the Arctic Ocean , 2002, Science.

[8]  Michel Fily,et al.  A simple retrieval method for land surface temperature and fraction of water surface determination from satellite microwave brightness temperatures in sub-arctic areas , 2003 .

[9]  Y. Sheng,et al.  A high‐resolution GIS‐based inventory of the west Siberian peat carbon pool , 2004 .

[10]  D. Monteith,et al.  Export of organic carbon from peat soils , 2001, Nature.

[11]  L. D. Hinzman,et al.  Disappearing Arctic Lakes , 2005, Science.

[12]  D. Bromwich,et al.  Large‐scale hydro‐climatology of the terrestrial Arctic drainage system , 2002 .

[13]  L. Smith,et al.  Recent temperature and precipitation increases in West Siberia and their association with the Arctic Oscillation , 2003 .

[14]  Arnaud Mialon,et al.  Wetland seasonal dynamics and interannual variability over northern high latitudes, derived from microwave satellite data , 2005 .

[15]  A. Venkitaraman.  Water cycle shifts gear , 2005 .

[16]  P. Stott,et al.  Human influence on increasing Arctic river discharges , 2005 .

[17]  Christoph C. Raible,et al.  Climate change: Water cycle shifts gear , 2005, Nature.

[18]  M. Stieglitz,et al.  Increasing river discharge in the Eurasian Arctic: Consideration of dams, permafrost thaw, and fires as potential agents of change , 2004 .

[19]  E. S. Melnikov,et al.  Circum-Arctic map of permafrost and ground-ice conditions , 1997 .