Permafrost and lakes control river isotope composition across a boreal Arctic transect in the Western Siberian lowlands
The Western Siberian Lowlands (WSL) store large quantities of organic carbon that will be exposed and mobilized by the thawing of permafrost. The fate of mobilized carbon, however, is not well understood, partly because of inadequate knowledge of hydrological controls in the region which has a vast...
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Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aaa4fe https://doaj.org/article/bcf2c807acfb4fba8f8061a5f381e29f |
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:bcf2c807acfb4fba8f8061a5f381e29f 2023-09-05T13:17:38+02:00 Permafrost and lakes control river isotope composition across a boreal Arctic transect in the Western Siberian lowlands P Ala-aho C Soulsby O S Pokrovsky S N Kirpotin J Karlsson S Serikova R Manasypov A Lim I Krickov L G Kolesnichenko H Laudon D Tetzlaff 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aaa4fe https://doaj.org/article/bcf2c807acfb4fba8f8061a5f381e29f EN eng IOP Publishing https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aaa4fe https://doaj.org/toc/1748-9326 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aaa4fe 1748-9326 https://doaj.org/article/bcf2c807acfb4fba8f8061a5f381e29f Environmental Research Letters, Vol 13, Iss 3, p 034028 (2018) stable water isotopes Western Siberia Lowlands mean transit time hydrological connectivity permafrost Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 article 2018 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aaa4fe 2023-08-13T00:37:40Z The Western Siberian Lowlands (WSL) store large quantities of organic carbon that will be exposed and mobilized by the thawing of permafrost. The fate of mobilized carbon, however, is not well understood, partly because of inadequate knowledge of hydrological controls in the region which has a vast low-relief surface area, extensive lake and wetland coverage and gradually increasing permafrost influence. We used stable water isotopes to improve our understanding of dominant landscape controls on the hydrology of the WSL. We sampled rivers along a 1700 km South–North transect from permafrost-free to continuous permafrost repeatedly over three years, and derived isotope proxies for catchment hydrological responsiveness and connectivity. We found correlations between the isotope proxies and catchment characteristics, suggesting that lakes and wetlands are intimately connected to rivers, and that permafrost increases the responsiveness of the catchment to rainfall and snowmelt events, reducing catchment mean transit times. Our work provides rare isotope-based field evidence that permafrost and lakes/wetlands influence hydrological pathways across a wide range of spatial scales (10–10 ^5 km ^2 ) and permafrost coverage (0%–70%). This has important implications, because both permafrost extent and lake/wetland coverage are affected by permafrost thaw in the changing climate. Changes in these hydrological landscape controls are likely to alter carbon export and emission via inland waters, which may be of global significance. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic permafrost Siberia Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Arctic Environmental Research Letters 13 3 034028 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
stable water isotopes Western Siberia Lowlands mean transit time hydrological connectivity permafrost Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 |
spellingShingle |
stable water isotopes Western Siberia Lowlands mean transit time hydrological connectivity permafrost Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 P Ala-aho C Soulsby O S Pokrovsky S N Kirpotin J Karlsson S Serikova R Manasypov A Lim I Krickov L G Kolesnichenko H Laudon D Tetzlaff Permafrost and lakes control river isotope composition across a boreal Arctic transect in the Western Siberian lowlands |
topic_facet |
stable water isotopes Western Siberia Lowlands mean transit time hydrological connectivity permafrost Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 |
description |
The Western Siberian Lowlands (WSL) store large quantities of organic carbon that will be exposed and mobilized by the thawing of permafrost. The fate of mobilized carbon, however, is not well understood, partly because of inadequate knowledge of hydrological controls in the region which has a vast low-relief surface area, extensive lake and wetland coverage and gradually increasing permafrost influence. We used stable water isotopes to improve our understanding of dominant landscape controls on the hydrology of the WSL. We sampled rivers along a 1700 km South–North transect from permafrost-free to continuous permafrost repeatedly over three years, and derived isotope proxies for catchment hydrological responsiveness and connectivity. We found correlations between the isotope proxies and catchment characteristics, suggesting that lakes and wetlands are intimately connected to rivers, and that permafrost increases the responsiveness of the catchment to rainfall and snowmelt events, reducing catchment mean transit times. Our work provides rare isotope-based field evidence that permafrost and lakes/wetlands influence hydrological pathways across a wide range of spatial scales (10–10 ^5 km ^2 ) and permafrost coverage (0%–70%). This has important implications, because both permafrost extent and lake/wetland coverage are affected by permafrost thaw in the changing climate. Changes in these hydrological landscape controls are likely to alter carbon export and emission via inland waters, which may be of global significance. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
P Ala-aho C Soulsby O S Pokrovsky S N Kirpotin J Karlsson S Serikova R Manasypov A Lim I Krickov L G Kolesnichenko H Laudon D Tetzlaff |
author_facet |
P Ala-aho C Soulsby O S Pokrovsky S N Kirpotin J Karlsson S Serikova R Manasypov A Lim I Krickov L G Kolesnichenko H Laudon D Tetzlaff |
author_sort |
P Ala-aho |
title |
Permafrost and lakes control river isotope composition across a boreal Arctic transect in the Western Siberian lowlands |
title_short |
Permafrost and lakes control river isotope composition across a boreal Arctic transect in the Western Siberian lowlands |
title_full |
Permafrost and lakes control river isotope composition across a boreal Arctic transect in the Western Siberian lowlands |
title_fullStr |
Permafrost and lakes control river isotope composition across a boreal Arctic transect in the Western Siberian lowlands |
title_full_unstemmed |
Permafrost and lakes control river isotope composition across a boreal Arctic transect in the Western Siberian lowlands |
title_sort |
permafrost and lakes control river isotope composition across a boreal arctic transect in the western siberian lowlands |
publisher |
IOP Publishing |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aaa4fe https://doaj.org/article/bcf2c807acfb4fba8f8061a5f381e29f |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic permafrost Siberia |
genre_facet |
Arctic permafrost Siberia |
op_source |
Environmental Research Letters, Vol 13, Iss 3, p 034028 (2018) |
op_relation |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aaa4fe https://doaj.org/toc/1748-9326 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aaa4fe 1748-9326 https://doaj.org/article/bcf2c807acfb4fba8f8061a5f381e29f |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aaa4fe |
container_title |
Environmental Research Letters |
container_volume |
13 |
container_issue |
3 |
container_start_page |
034028 |
_version_ |
1776198734579761152 |