Amadini Mendis Jayasinghe
Advisors
Dr. Gayan Rubasinghege
&
Dr. Scott Elliott
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Modeling Functional Organic Chemistry in Arctic Rivers: An Idealized Siberian System
Arctic rivers play a crucial role in determining high latitude amplification of global climate change with the associated feedbacks. Polar discharge is massive and transports significant continental dissolved organic content to the climatologically sensitive Arctic Ocean. Dissolved organics in turn carry various functional groups along their macromolecular backbones which are capable of impacting biophysical properties, from the coast all the way out to the ice edge. In our own polar research here at NMT, we have performed reduced kinetic modelling for components of the generalized organic matter (protein, sugar, lipids, humics, etc.) as they interact structurally moving along idealized Arctic rivers. Our results suggest relatively slow transformation of the individual chemical species along any one flow system, while mixing and channel recombination dominate the determination of outlet concentration for most species. Threshold values for biophysical influence such as light attenuation are typically surpassed in the coastal riverine plume extending to the scale of peripheral seas -whether with regard to attenuation, surfactant level or other effect. Conclusions are mapped directly from headwaters all the way to the various outlets, so that in next-generation studies we can highlight the impact of permafrost degradation.
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