Mackenzie River Research Paper

The monumentous Mackenzie River flows approximately 3oo cubic kilometer of freshwater from Canada’s Northwest Territories and to the Arctic Ocean annually. This river is a part of a basin with tributaries, other rivers, and forests; it is considered to be a climate stabilizer. It is only a significant, intricate member of a network made entirely of other small rivers that run across the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Freshwater cycles through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (aka the CAA) and ends up being distributed into the North Atlantic. Essentially, the Mackenzie River is a basin full of permafrost; it is very centered on the cold temperatures. This is a very risky business. As temperatures continue to rise, the permafrost and glaciers around

Mackenzie River would begin to melt. Which would mean more freshwater being exported. Flooding would occur, and boreal forests would fail. Entire ecosystems would disappear, change, re-invent themselves. Hundreds of species relocated.
Not just that, even though that seems dreadful enough.

The fluctuating tides based on density levels, salinity, surface heat and freshwater amounts available is defined as thermohaline circulation, also known as the great ocean conveyor belt. In colder areas, and Polar Regions, the warmer surface water becomes cool enough and dense enough in salinity to sink the bottom of the ocean and pushes the deep water into shifting and rising. It is postulated that an outpouring of fresh meltwater upset the salinity balance of the surface water, preventing it from becoming dense enough to sink and stopping the thermohaline circulation, caused the world to be catapulted another Ice Age. A research team of University of Sussex, commanded an expedition to study the gravel and boulder deposits from the Mackenzie River basin as well as the Athabasca Valley for clues or indications of meltwater travel. These physical structures do indeed suggest that there were two floods, one of which is estimated to coincide with the approximated timing of the flood that slingshot the northern hemisphere into glacier

conditions.
Each CAA tributary, stream, river, or discharge has a unique geochemical fingerprint. Deciding how much the smaller CAA tributaries contribute to the freshwater amounts being dumped into the North Atlantic is the challenge. Sample sites were chosen carefully, and deliberately; there was no room for error. Researchers needed to avoid things like environmental impact and salt-water contamination. When the appropriate samples were collected from the central channel using an extendable pole, then they were run through a filter and tested to determine what anions, cations, oxygen isotopes, and nutrients were present in each sample. Of course, these exact measurements probably are not completely, 100% accurate, since the river fluxes differ contingent on the time of season as expulsion increases and decreases.
There was a surprising amount of variance between slighter tributaries and vast rivers.

On average, CAA contributors have higher alkalinity capacities, and lower concentrations in barium. Coppermine, Thornsen, Kujjuua, and Cunningham CAA rivers actually match Mackenzie River in retrospect. These differences could be due to differences in sedimentology, geology, vegetative growth, surrounding wildlife and plant growth, as well as the flowing water sources. Most CAA contributors actually originate or are confined inside the Arctic Circle; this means most recurrent accretion is from snowfall or glacier release. Logically, during seasonal cycles, water movement crests during the summer and strains in the winter. Of course, once all these tributaries, streams, and rivers (the CAA plus the Mackenzie), are finally added together their geochemical make-up has been altered via mixing. The study is on-going, and researchers continue to accumulate data from river

sites.
This topic is of the upmost urgency, because we need to learn what levels are good for thermohaline circulation. If scientists are correct, then global warming could cause our earth to be plunged into a whole new state of being. We’re not talking just an environmental disaster, but an entire re-establishment of what life has been like here on earth. This is “Day After Tomorrow” serious!