Modeling the Arctic freshwater system and its integration in the global system: Lessons learned and future challenges

Observations are particularly sparse, in both time and space, in the polar regions. Hence, modeling systems have been widely used and are a powerful tool to gain understanding on the functioning of the Arctic freshwater system and its integration within the global Earth system and climate.

Here we present a review of modeling studies addressing some aspect of the Arctic freshwater system. Through illustrative examples, we point out the value of using a hierarchy of models with increasing complexity and component interactions, in order to dismantle the important processes at play for the variability and changes of the different components of the Arctic freshwater system and the interplay between them. We discuss past and projected changes for the Arctic freshwater system and explore the sources of uncertainty associated with these model results.