A new pathway of freshwater methane emissions and the putative importance of microbubbles

Continental freshwater systems have now been shown to be globally significant sources of methane, but there are still large uncertainties associated with freshwater methane fluxes. Studies to date have mainly focused on either ebullition of bubbles originating from sediments or on diffusive fluxes of dissolved methane across the air–water interface. We examined the potential influence of a new mode of methane emission from freshwater systems by comparing the gas exchange velocities derived from carbon dioxide and methane fluxes in a set of diverse systems and environmental conditions. In more than 90% of 260 measurements, methane exhibited higher evasion rates than strictly Fickian diffusive processes would suggest. The portion of flux associated with this non-Fickian diffusion, which we attribute to the presence of semistable microbubbles, was closely related and directly proportional to the degree of methane supersaturation relative to the atmosphere. On average, microbubble-mediated flux contributed about half of the total measured diffusive efflux from the systems and could be modeled as an additive gas piston velocity of, on average, 2.1 m d−1. The microbubble-mediated flux is completely absent in calculations of diffusive methane fluxes derived from ambient pCH4, and is also not necessarily captured in current approaches used to determine ebullition rates. Our results suggest that methane evasion rates based only on measured partial pressures and exchange velocities characteristic of Fickian diffusive processes will grossly underestimate methane losses from these boreal ecosystems

Variability in fire frequency and forest composition in Canada's Southeastern Boreal Forest: A challenge for sustainable forest management

Because some consequences of fire resemble the effects of industrial forest harvesting, forest management is often considered as a disturbance having effects similar to those of natural disturbances. Although the analogy between forest management and fire disturbance in boreal ecosystems has some merit, it is important to recognize that it has limitations. First, normal forest rotations truncate the natural forest stand age distribution and eliminate over-mature forests from the landscape. Second, in the boreal mixedwoods, natural forest dynamics following fire may involve a gradual replacement of stands of intolerant broadleaf species by mixedwood and then softwood stands, whereas current silvicultural practices promote successive rotations of similarly composed stands. Third, the large fluctuations observed in fire frequency during the Holocene limit the use of a single fire cycle to characterize natural fire regimes. Short fire cycles generally described for boreal ecosystems do not appear to be universal; rather, shifts between short and long fire cycles have been observed. These shifts imply important changes in forest composition at the landscape and regional levels. All of these factors create a natural variability in forest composition that should be maintained by forest managers concerned with the conservation of biodiversity. One avenue is to develop silvicultural techniques that maintain a spectrum of forest compositions over the landscape

Large increases in carbon burial in northern lakes during the Anthropocene

Northern forests are important ecosystems for carbon (C) cycling and lakes within them process and bury large amounts of organic-C. Current burial estimates are poorly constrained and may discount other shifts in organic-C burial driven by global change. Here we analyse a suite of northern lakes to determine trends in organic-C burial throughout the Anthropocene. We found burial rates increased significantly over the last century and are up to five times greater than previous estimates. Despite a correlation with temperature, warming alone did not explain the increase in burial, suggesting the importance of other drivers including atmospherically deposited reactive nitrogen. Upscaling mean lake burial rates for each time period to global northern forests yields up to 4.5 Pg C accumulated in the last 100 years—20% of the total burial over the Holocene. Our results indicate that lakes will become increasingly important for C burial under future global change scenarios

Global abundance and size distribution of streams and rivers

To better integrate lotic ecosystems into global cycles and budgets, we provide approximations of the size-distribution and areal extent of streams and rivers. One approach we used was to employ stream network theory combined with data on stream width. We also used detailed stream networks on 2 continents to estimate the fraction of continental area occupied by streams worldwide and corrected remote sensing stream inventories for unresolved small streams. Our estimates of global fluvial area are 485 000 to 662 000 km2 and are +30–300% of published appraisals. Moderately sized rivers (orders 5–9) seem to comprise the greatest global area, with less area covered by low and high order streams, while global stream length, and therefore the riparian interface, is dominated by 1st order streams. Rivers and streams are likely to cover 0.30–0.56% of the land surface and make contributions to global processes and greenhouse gas emissions that may be +20–200% greater than those implied by previous estimates

Net greenhouse gas balance of fibre wood plantation on peat in Indonesia

Tropical peatlands cycle and store large amounts of carbon in their soil and biomass1,2,3,4,5. Climate and land-use change alters greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes of tropical peatlands, but the magnitude of these changes remains highly uncertain6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19. Here we measure net ecosystem exchanges of carbon dioxide, methane and soil nitrous oxide fluxes between October 2016 and May 2022 from Acacia crassicarpa plantation, degraded forest and intact forest within the same peat landscape, representing land-cover-change trajectories in Sumatra, Indonesia. This allows us to present a full plantation rotation GHG flux balance in a fibre wood plantation on peatland. We find that the Acacia plantation has lower GHG emissions than the degraded site with a similar average groundwater level (GWL), despite more intensive land use. The GHG emissions from the Acacia plantation over a full plantation rotation (35.2 ± 4.7 tCO2-eq ha−1 year−1, average ± standard deviation) were around two times higher than those from the intact forest (20.3 ± 3.7 tCO2-eq ha−1 year−1), but only half of the current Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Tier 1 emission factor (EF)20 for this land use. Our results can help to reduce the uncertainty in GHG emissions estimates, provide an estimate of the impact of land-use change on tropical peat and develop science-based peatland management practices as nature-based climate solutions

Anthropogenic perturbation of the carbon fluxes from land to ocean

A substantial amount of the atmospheric carbon taken up on land through photosynthesis and chemical weathering is transported laterally along the aquatic continuum from upland terrestrial ecosystems to the ocean. So far, global carbon budget estimates have implicitly assumed that the transformation and lateral transport of carbon along this aquatic continuum has remained unchanged since pre-industrial times. A synthesis of published work reveals the magnitude of present-day lateral carbon fluxes from land to ocean, and the extent to which human activities have altered these fluxes. We show that anthropogenic perturbation may have increased the flux of carbon to inland waters by as much as 1.0 Pg C yr-1 since pre-industrial times, mainly owing to enhanced carbon export from soils. Most of this additional carbon input to upstream rivers is either emitted back to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (~0.4 Pg C yr-1) or sequestered in sediments (~0.5 Pg C yr-1) along the continuum of freshwater bodies, estuaries and coastal waters, leaving only a perturbation carbon input of ~0.1 Pg C yr-1 to the open ocean. According to our analysis, terrestrial ecosystems store ~0.9 Pg C yr-1 at present, which is in agreement with results from forest inventories but significantly differs from the figure of 1.5 Pg C yr-1 previously estimated when ignoring changes in lateral carbon fluxes. We suggest that carbon fluxes along the land–ocean aquatic continuum need to be included in global carbon dioxide budgets.Peer reviewe

Direct and indirect metabolic CO2 release by humanity

The direct CO2 released by respiration of humans and domesticated animals, as well as CO2 derived from the decomposition of their resulting wastes was calculated in order to ascertain the direct and indirect metabolic contribution of humanity to CO2 release. Human respiration was estimated to release 0.6 Gt C year-1 and that of their associated domestic animals was estimated to release 1.5 GtC year -1, to which an indirect release of 1.0 Gt C year-1, derived from decomposition of the organic waste and garbage produced by humans and their domestic animals, must be added. These combined direct and indirect metabolic sources, estimated at 3.1 GtC year-1, have increased 7 fold since pre-industrial times and are predicted to continue to rise over the 21st century.Peer Reviewe

Empirical models of phosphorus in streams and lakes

Note:The aim of this thesis is to develop empirical models of phosphorus in streams and lakes. Phosphorus export from catchments is linearly related to catchment area in forested watersheds. In agricultural catchments,phosphorus export per unit area decreases with increasing catchment area. Variations in dissolved phosphorus concentration within streams are attributable to water discharge, water temperature, and in one stream,solar irradiance. Variations in particulate phosphorus concentration within and among streams are predictable from forest cover, stream channel gradient, catchment size, discharge, and precipitation. Comparison of the empirical adequacy of three sedimentation assumptions of lake phosphorus mass-balance models showed that the amount of phosphorus sedimented annually is more closely associated with the loading mass than the lake phosphorus content. A model based on the TN:TP ratio of lakes appears to unify chlorophyll:nutrient relationships in lakes.Le but de cette thèse est de déveloper des modelés empiriques relies au phosphore dans les ruisseaux et les lacs. La quantité de phosphore exportée des bassins versants forestiers est une fonction linéaire de leurs superficies. Cependant, dans les bassins en agriculture, cette quantité (exprimée par unité de surface) diminue avec la superficie du bassin versant. Les variations dans la concentration de phosphore dissout dans les ruisseaux sont attribuables au débit hydrologique, a la température, et dans un cas, a l'ensoleillement. Un modelé, expliquant les variations de concentration de phosphore particulaire dans les ruisseaux et base sur le couvert forestier, la pente du ruisseau, la superfice du bassin versant, le débit hydrologique et les précipitations, est présente. Une comparaison de la validité empirique de trois suppositions implicites aux modèles de conservation de masse de phosphore dans les lacs a demontre que la quantité de phosphore sédimentée annuellement est reliée plus étroitement à la charge annuelle de phosphore qu'à la masse contenue dans le lac. Un modèle base sur le rapport TN:TP (azote:phosphore) est présente afin de généraliser les relations chlorophille:phosphore dans les lacs