Drivers of diffusive CH 4 emissions from shallow subarctic lakes on daily to multi-year timescales

Lakes and reservoirs contribute to regional carbon budgets via significant emissions of climate forcing trace gases. Here, for improved modelling, we use 8 years of floating chamber measurements from three small, shallow subarctic lakes (2010–2017, n =1306 ) to separate the contribution of physical...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biogeosciences
Main Authors: J. Jansen, B. F. Thornton, A. Cortés, J. Snöälv, M. Wik, S. MacIntyre, P. M. Crill
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Copernicus Publications 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-1911-2020
https://doaj.org/article/8440510f55aa40489b7919e66d2cb5c0
Description
Summary:Lakes and reservoirs contribute to regional carbon budgets via significant emissions of climate forcing trace gases. Here, for improved modelling, we use 8 years of floating chamber measurements from three small, shallow subarctic lakes (2010–2017, n =1306 ) to separate the contribution of physical and biogeochemical processes to the turbulence-driven, diffusion-limited flux of methane ( CH 4 ) on daily to multi-year timescales. Correlative data include surface water concentration measurements (2009–2017, n =606 ), total water column storage (2010–2017, n =237 ), and in situ meteorological observations. We used the last to compute near-surface turbulence based on similarity scaling and then applied the surface renewal model to compute gas transfer velocities. Chamber fluxes averaged 6.9±0.3 mg CH 4 m −2 d −1 and gas transfer velocities ( k 600 ) averaged 4.0±0.1 cm h −1 . Chamber-derived gas transfer velocities tracked the power-law wind speed relation of the model. Coefficients for the model and dissipation rates depended on shear production of turbulence, atmospheric stability, and exposure to wind. Fluxes increased with wind speed until daily average values exceeded 6.5 m s −1 , at which point emissions were suppressed due to rapid water column degassing reducing the water–air concentration gradient. Arrhenius-type temperature functions of the CH 4 flux ( <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M16" display="inline" overflow="scroll" dspmath="mathml"><mrow><msubsup><mi>E</mi><mi mathvariant="normal">a</mi><mo>′</mo></msubsup><mo>=</mo><mn mathvariant="normal">0.90</mn><mo>±</mo><mn mathvariant="normal">0.14</mn></mrow></math> <svg:svg xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="81pt" height="14pt" class="svg-formula" dspmath="mathimg" md5hash="72587c844285b35daab55b4019f9a7c5"><svg:image xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" ...