Yearly Flood Into Gulf of Alaska Exceeds Freshwater Output of Mississippi River
Satellite data has confirmed that the amount of freshwater released into the Gulf of Alaska from streams and rivers in Alaska and northern Canada is about 1.5 times what the Mississippi River dumps into the Gulf of Mexico each year.
That astounding flow of water is from rainfalls that soak Southeast Alaska and the south side of the Alaska Range. The other half comes from the melting of snow and ice from glaciers.
Glaciologist Anthony Arendt is an author of a recent paper in which researchers used different pieces of information to determine the fresh water input to the northern Pacific from Alaska and northwest Canada. He works at the Geophysical Institute at UAF and studied data from a NASA mission that features two satellites orbiting Earth about 300 miles above our heads.
More: Yearly Flood Into Gulf of Alaska Exceeds Freshwater Output of Mississippi River