Modeling CO2 emissions from Arctic lakes: Model development and site-level study ...

• Main Authors: Tan, Zeli, Zhuang, Qianlai, Shurpali, Narasinha J., Marushchak, Maija E., Biasi, Christina, Eugster, Werner, Walter Anthony, Katey
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: ETH Zurich 2017
• Subjects: Arctic; permafrost; Thermokarst
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000212376; http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/214976

Recent studies indicated that Arctic lakes play an important role in receiving, processing, and storing organic carbon exported from terrestrial ecosystems. To quantify the contribution of Arctic lakes to the global carbon cycle, we developed a one-dimensional process-based Arctic Lake Biogeochemistry Model (ALBM) that explicitly simulates the dynamics of organic and inorganic carbon in Arctic lakes. By realistically modeling water mixing, carbon biogeochemistry, and permafrost carbon loading, the model can reproduce the seasonal variability of CO2 fluxes from the study Arctic lakes. The simulated area-weighted CO2 fluxes from yedoma thermokarst lakes, nonyedoma thermokarst lakes, and glacial lakes are 29.5, 13.0, and 21.4 g C m−2 yr−1, respectively, close to the observed values (31.2, 17.2, and 16.5 ± 7.7 g C m−2 yr−1, respectively). The simulations show that the high CO2 fluxes from yedoma thermokarst lakes are stimulated by the biomineralization of mobilized labile organic carbon from thawing yedoma ... : Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 9 (5) ...