Storage and release of organic carbon from glaciers and ice sheets
Polar ice sheets and mountain glaciers, which cover roughly 11% of the Earth's land surface, store organic carbon from local and distant sources and then release it to downstream environments. Climate-driven changes to glacier runoff are expected to be larger than climate impacts on other compo...
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Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1038/Ngeo2331 http://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/208595 |
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ftinfoscience:oai:infoscience.tind.io:208595 2023-05-15T13:48:06+02:00 Storage and release of organic carbon from glaciers and ice sheets Hood, Eran Battin, Tom J. Fellman, Jason O'Neel, Shad Spencer, Robert G. M. 2015-05-29T10:51:55Z https://doi.org/10.1038/Ngeo2331 http://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/208595 unknown New York, Nature Publishing Group doi:10.1038/Ngeo2331 ISI:000349354200009 http://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/208595 http://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/208595 Text 2015 ftinfoscience https://doi.org/10.1038/Ngeo2331 2023-02-13T22:27:08Z Polar ice sheets and mountain glaciers, which cover roughly 11% of the Earth's land surface, store organic carbon from local and distant sources and then release it to downstream environments. Climate-driven changes to glacier runoff are expected to be larger than climate impacts on other components of the hydrological cycle, and may represent an important flux of organic carbon. A compilation of published data on dissolved organic carbon from glaciers across five continents reveals that mountain and polar glaciers represent a quantitatively important store of organic carbon. The Antarctic Ice Sheet is the repository of most of the roughly 6 petagrams (Pg) of organic carbon stored in glacier ice, but the annual release of glacier organic carbon is dominated by mountain glaciers in the case of dissolved organic carbon and the Greenland Ice Sheet in the case of particulate organic carbon. Climate change contributes to these fluxes: approximately 13% of the annual flux of glacier dissolved organic carbon is a result of glacier mass loss. These losses are expected to accelerate, leading to a cumulative loss of roughly 15 teragrams (Tg) of glacial dissolved organic carbon by 2050 due to climate change - equivalent to about half of the annual flux of dissolved organic carbon from the Amazon River. Thus, glaciers constitute a key link between terrestrial and aquatic carbon fluxes, and will be of increasing importance in land-to-ocean fluxes of organic carbon in glacierized regions. Text Antarc* Antarctic glacier Greenland Ice Sheet EPFL Infoscience (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale Lausanne) Antarctic Greenland The Antarctic Nature Geoscience 8 2 91 96 |
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EPFL Infoscience (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale Lausanne) |
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Polar ice sheets and mountain glaciers, which cover roughly 11% of the Earth's land surface, store organic carbon from local and distant sources and then release it to downstream environments. Climate-driven changes to glacier runoff are expected to be larger than climate impacts on other components of the hydrological cycle, and may represent an important flux of organic carbon. A compilation of published data on dissolved organic carbon from glaciers across five continents reveals that mountain and polar glaciers represent a quantitatively important store of organic carbon. The Antarctic Ice Sheet is the repository of most of the roughly 6 petagrams (Pg) of organic carbon stored in glacier ice, but the annual release of glacier organic carbon is dominated by mountain glaciers in the case of dissolved organic carbon and the Greenland Ice Sheet in the case of particulate organic carbon. Climate change contributes to these fluxes: approximately 13% of the annual flux of glacier dissolved organic carbon is a result of glacier mass loss. These losses are expected to accelerate, leading to a cumulative loss of roughly 15 teragrams (Tg) of glacial dissolved organic carbon by 2050 due to climate change - equivalent to about half of the annual flux of dissolved organic carbon from the Amazon River. Thus, glaciers constitute a key link between terrestrial and aquatic carbon fluxes, and will be of increasing importance in land-to-ocean fluxes of organic carbon in glacierized regions. |
format |
Text |
author |
Hood, Eran Battin, Tom J. Fellman, Jason O'Neel, Shad Spencer, Robert G. M. |
spellingShingle |
Hood, Eran Battin, Tom J. Fellman, Jason O'Neel, Shad Spencer, Robert G. M. Storage and release of organic carbon from glaciers and ice sheets |
author_facet |
Hood, Eran Battin, Tom J. Fellman, Jason O'Neel, Shad Spencer, Robert G. M. |
author_sort |
Hood, Eran |
title |
Storage and release of organic carbon from glaciers and ice sheets |
title_short |
Storage and release of organic carbon from glaciers and ice sheets |
title_full |
Storage and release of organic carbon from glaciers and ice sheets |
title_fullStr |
Storage and release of organic carbon from glaciers and ice sheets |
title_full_unstemmed |
Storage and release of organic carbon from glaciers and ice sheets |
title_sort |
storage and release of organic carbon from glaciers and ice sheets |
publisher |
New York, Nature Publishing Group |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1038/Ngeo2331 http://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/208595 |
geographic |
Antarctic Greenland The Antarctic |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Greenland The Antarctic |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic glacier Greenland Ice Sheet |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic glacier Greenland Ice Sheet |
op_source |
http://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/208595 |
op_relation |
doi:10.1038/Ngeo2331 ISI:000349354200009 http://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/208595 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/Ngeo2331 |
container_title |
Nature Geoscience |
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8 |
container_issue |
2 |
container_start_page |
91 |
op_container_end_page |
96 |
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1766248580513792000 |