Sediment transport to the Arctic Ocean and adjoining cold oceans*

Abstract

This paper reviews and synthesises available information on sediment transport to the Arctic Ocean and adjoining seas with open contact to the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Special emphasis is placed on calculation and estimation of the sediment flux from the mostly ungauged high Arctic areas on the American continent, in Greenland, and on islands in the Arctic Ocean, and from Russia. In the absence of reliable information on bedload fluxes for most rivers, attention is directed primarily to suspended sediment loads. By combining available monitoring data and estimates for ungauged areas, the total sediment transport to the Arctic Ocean is estimated to be 324–884 × 106 t yr−1. Of this total, a maximum of about 56% can be considered as monitored, while the rest is based on different types of estimate. It is clearly demonstrated that the monitoring network in the high Arctic is inadequate and that there is a lack of knowledge concerning the proportion of the load that actually reaches the sea, as well as bedload.