A study published in Nature Climate Change shows that warmer temperatures change vegetation and water infiltration in Arctic river plains, leading to a slowdown in river lateral mobility.

The researchers have analyzed the evolution of the 10 largest Arctic rivers in Alaska (United States), Yukon (Canada), and the Northwest Territories (Canada) during the past 50 years and the results reveal a surprising reduction in lateral migration rates of Arctic rivers on the order of 20 percent over the past 50 years, due to a series of indirect effects related to atmospheric warming.

The research was coordinated by Alessandro Ielpi of the University of British Columbia, a former visiting scientist at the Department of Geosciences at the University of Padua in 2019, together with Alvise Finotello from the Department of Geosciences at the University of Padua, Mathieu Lapotre at Stanford University (USA), and Université Laval’s Pascale Roy-Leveillée (Canada).

In this video the co-author Alvise Finotello explains more about the study.

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