Poster Presentation Society for Freshwater Science 2025 Annual Meeting

Glacier runoff impacts the stoichiometry of riverine C, N, and P export to the ocean (118023)

Jason B Fellman 1 , Eran Hood 1 , Lee A Munk 2 , Jordan Jenckes 3 , Emily J Whitney 1 , Eric S Klein 4
  1. Department of Natural Sciences, University of Alaska Southeast, Juneau, AK, United States
  2. Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, United States
  3. Department of Chemistry, University of Alaska Anchorage, Anchorage, Alaska, United States
  4. Department of Geological Sciences, University of Alaska Anchorage, Anchorage, Alaska, United States

Northern high-latitude ecosystems have undergone unprecedented warming over the past century resulting in the melting of mountain glaciers. The resulting glacier-driven shifts in catchment hydrology can affect biogeochemical export and the productivity of proglacial rivers and coastal marine ecosystems with limited exposure to the open ocean. Understanding the impacts of glacier change on riverine ecosystems is limited by a lack of multi-year studies in glacierized mountain catchments quantifying the amount, timing, and stoichiometry of riverine biogeochemical yields. Here we evaluate riverine concentration-discharge (C-Q) relationships using the power law model fit between runoff (water yield, mm day-1) and daily element yields and biogeochemical stoichiometry across 10 catchments spanning a broad glacial coverage gradient within two climatically distinct regions in the northern Gulf of Alaska. Our 3-5 year study showed that biogeochemical stoichiometry and C-Q relationships for dissolved carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus varied significantly with catchment glacier coverage across both regions. This stoichiometric variability could drive regional differences in biogeochemical processes given that low productivity river food webs are generally driven by bottom-up controls. Our findings suggest that some patterns in C-Q relationships are likely generalizable to proglacial rivers globally or to cryospheric-dominated catchments that have seasonal and perennial snow cover. Overall, our study provides new insights into the relative importance of elemental sources and transport pathways from rapidly changing glacierized catchments that can help inform how biogeochemical export and hydrological processes are represented in high latitude and mountain catchment models.