Dissolved and colloidal trace elements in the Yukon River system: possible responses to climate change
Abstract
Dissolved and colloidal trace elements were determined in rivers and streams within the Yukon River Basin in Alaska and Canada. We observe certain associations between landscape types (e.g., permafrost-dominated, non-glacial mountainous, and glaciated) and the concentrations of some elements. Most particularly, dissolved trace elements with strong associations with DOC (e.g., Cu, Fe) tend to be highest in streams in permafrost- dominated basins and lowest in glaciated stream basins. These concentration contrasts appear to result from how the balance between complexation and adsorption is affected by the differing suspended loads and DOC concentrations of permafrost and glacial rivers. For the colloidal phase, a number of the particle-reactive trace elements have high colloidal percentages (though not necessarily high absolute concentrations) in glacial basins (e.g., Cd, Zn). These apparent linkages between landscape and trace elements suggest that as landscapes change in response to climate warming, there should be resulting changes in trace element concentrations. Ultimately, metal concentrations of permafrost and glacial rivers are both likely to look more like the non-glaciated mountainous rivers. Because metal-DOC-pH relationships tend to be non-linear, some concentration changes may be large.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2006
- Bibcode:
- 2006AGUFM.B23E..04S
- Keywords:
-
- 0414 Biogeochemical cycles;
- processes;
- and modeling (0412;
- 0793;
- 1615;
- 4805;
- 0489 Trace element cycling (4875);
- 0496 Water quality;
- 1806 Chemistry of fresh water