Landscape-Scale Variability of Organic Carbon Burial by SW Greenland Lakes

Abstract

Lakes are a key feature of arctic landscapes and can be an important component of regional organic carbon (OC) budgets, but C burial rates are not well estimated. 210 Pb-dated sediment cores and carbon and organic matter (as loss-on-ignition) content were used to estimate OC burial for 16 lakes in SW Greenland. Burial rates were corrected for sediment focusing using the 210 Pb flux method. The study lakes span a range of water chemistries (conductivity range 25–3400 µS cm −1 ), areas ( 1000 ha) suggests a regional annual lake OC burial rate of ~ 10.14 × 10 9  g C y −1 post 1950. Given the low C content of soils in this area, lakes represent a substantial regional C store