Glacial Control of Water Resource and Related Environmental Responses to Climatic Warming: Empirical Analysis Using Historical Streamflow Data from Northwestern Canada

We applied nonparametric statistical techniques to historical streamflow data from five glacierized and four nonglacierized watersheds in southwest Yukon and northwestern British Columbia, Canada, to determine whether rivers with and without catchment glacial cover respond in significantly different ways to a warming climate. The analysis was posed in terms of contrasts between the two groups with respect to long-term trends in annual time series of total river flow volume. We found that glacier-fed rivers grew larger and nival streams progressively smaller over the historical record under an observed regional warming trend. Although some of these trend effects are subtle, the overall result was statistically significant at restrictive [...]