scholarly journals Stable Water Isotope Assessment of Tundra Wetland Hydrology as a Potential Source of Arctic Riverine Dissolved Organic Carbon in the Indigirka River Lowland, Northeastern Siberia

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shinya Takano ◽  
Youhei Yamashita ◽  
Shunsuke Tei ◽  
Maochang Liang ◽  
Ryo Shingubara ◽  
...  

Arctic tundra wetlands may be an important source of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in Arctic rivers and the Arctic Ocean under global warming. We investigated stable water isotopes and DOC concentration in wetlands, tributaries, and the mainstream at the lower reaches of the Indigirka River in northeastern Siberia during the summers of 2010–2014 to assess the complex hydrology and role of wetlands as sources of riverine DOC. The wetlands had higher values of δ18O and DOC concentration than the tributaries and mainstream of the Indigirka River. A relationship between the two parameters was observed in the wetlands, tributaries, and mainstream, suggesting the wetlands can be a source of DOC for the mainstream through the tributaries. The combined temporal variations in riverine δ18O and DOC concentration indicate the mainstream water flowed into the tributaries during relatively high river-level periods in summer, whereas high DOC water in the downstream wetlands could be discharged to the mainstream through the tributaries during the low river-level periods. A minor fraction (7–13%) of riverine and wetland DOC was degraded during 40 days of dark incubation. Overall, the downstream wetlands potentially provide relatively less biodegradable DOC to the Arctic river and costal ecosystem during the low river-level periods—from late summer to autumn.

2022 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lydia Stolpmann ◽  
Gesine Mollenhauer ◽  
Anne Morgenstern ◽  
Jens S. Hammes ◽  
Julia Boike ◽  
...  

The Arctic is rich in aquatic systems and experiences rapid warming due to climate change. The accelerated warming causes permafrost thaw and the mobilization of organic carbon. When dissolved organic carbon is mobilized, this DOC can be transported to aquatic systems and degraded in the water bodies and further downstream. Here, we analyze the influence of different landscape components on DOC concentrations and export in a small (6.45 km2) stream catchment in the Lena River Delta. The catchment includes lakes and ponds, with the flow path from Pleistocene yedoma deposits across Holocene non-yedoma deposits to the river outlet. In addition to DOC concentrations, we use radiocarbon dating of DOC as well as stable oxygen and hydrogen isotopes (δ18O and δD) to assess the origin of DOC. We find significantly higher DOC concentrations in the Pleistocene yedoma area of the catchment compared to the Holocene non-yedoma area with medians of 5 and 4.5 mg L−1 (p < 0.05), respectively. When yedoma thaw streams with high DOC concentration reach a large yedoma thermokarst lake, we observe an abrupt decrease in DOC concentration, which we attribute to dilution and lake processes such as mineralization. The DOC ages in the large thermokarst lake (between 3,428 and 3,637 14C y BP) can be attributed to a mixing of mobilized old yedoma and Holocene carbon. Further downstream after the large thermokarst lake, we find progressively younger DOC ages in the stream water to its mouth, paired with decreasing DOC concentrations. This process could result from dilution with leaching water from Holocene deposits and/or emission of ancient yedoma carbon to the atmosphere. Our study shows that thermokarst lakes and ponds may act as DOC filters, predominantly by diluting incoming waters of higher DOC concentrations or by re-mineralizing DOC to CO2 and CH4. Nevertheless, our results also confirm that the small catchment still contributes DOC on the order of 1.2 kg km−2 per day from a permafrost landscape with ice-rich yedoma deposits to the Lena River.


2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 737-752 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Fritz ◽  
T. Opel ◽  
G. Tanski ◽  
U. Herzschuh ◽  
H. Meyer ◽  
...  

Abstract. Thermal permafrost degradation and coastal erosion in the Arctic remobilize substantial amounts of organic carbon (OC) and nutrients which have accumulated in late Pleistocene and Holocene unconsolidated deposits. Permafrost vulnerability to thaw subsidence, collapsing coastlines and irreversible landscape change are largely due to the presence of large amounts of massive ground ice such as ice wedges. However, ground ice has not, until now, been considered to be a source of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and other elements which are important for ecosystems and carbon cycling. Here we show, using biogeochemical data from a large number of different ice bodies throughout the Arctic, that ice wedges have the greatest potential for DOC storage, with a maximum of 28.6 mg L−1 (mean: 9.6 mg L−1). Variation in DOC concentration is positively correlated with and explained by the concentrations and relative amounts of typically terrestrial cations such as Mg2+ and K+. DOC sequestration into ground ice was more effective during the late Pleistocene than during the Holocene, which can be explained by rapid sediment and OC accumulation, the prevalence of more easily degradable vegetation and immediate incorporation into permafrost. We assume that pristine snowmelt is able to leach considerable amounts of well-preserved and highly bioavailable DOC as well as other elements from surface sediments, which are rapidly frozen and stored in ground ice, especially in ice wedges, even before further degradation. We found that ice wedges in the Yedoma region represent a significant DOC (45.2 Tg) and DIC (33.6 Tg) pool in permafrost areas and a freshwater reservoir of 4200 km2. This study underlines the need to discriminate between particulate OC and DOC to assess the availability and vulnerability of the permafrost carbon pool for ecosystems and climate feedback upon mobilization.


2005 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. (Bill) Keller ◽  
Jocelyne Heneberry ◽  
Julie Leduc

To investigate potential effects of climate change on lake thermal structure, we examined relationships between the amount of cold-water habitat in late summer (defined as the 10 °C depth), summer weather, and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration over a two-decade period (1981–2002) in a small Boreal Shield lake recovering from acidification. DOC concentration, wind-days (the product of mean daily wind speed and the number of days between ice-out and late-summer stratification), and mean daily temperature were significant predictors of the 10 °C depth in a multiple-regression model. A similar model using simply the number of ice-free days instead of wind-days was almost as effective. The models were quite successful in explaining interannual variations in the 10 °C depth when tested on a chemically and morphometrically similar nearby lake. While factors related to summer weather were important in explaining interannual variations in the amount of late-summer cold-water habitat, increased DOC concentration over the study period largely explained observed long-term decreases in the 10 °C depth (increases in cold-water habitat). DOC concentration was positively correlated with pH. In acidified regions, increases in DOC that accompany the recovery of acidified lakes will need to be considered in assessments of potential climate-change effects on lake thermal structure.


2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 3661-3675 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. I. Stutter ◽  
D. G. Lumsdon ◽  
A. P. Rowland

Abstract. Moorland carbon reserves in organo-mineral soils may be crucial to predicting landscape-scale variability in soil carbon losses, an important component of which is dissolved organic carbon (DOC). Surface water DOC trends are subject to a range of scaling, transport and biotic processes that disconnect them from signals in the catchment's soils. Long-term soil datasets are vital to identify changes in DOC release at source and soil C depletion. Here we show, that moorland soil solution DOC concentrations at three key UK Environmental Change Network sites increased between 1993–2007 in both surface- and sub- soil of a freely-draining Podzol (48 % and 215 % increases in O and Bs horizons, respectively), declined in a gleyed Podzol and showed no change in a Peat. Our principal findings were that: (1) considerable heterogeneity in DOC response appears to exist between different soils that is not apparent from the more consistent observed trends for streamwaters, and (2) freely-draining organo-mineral Podzol showed increasing DOC concentrations, countering the current scientific focus on soil C destabilization in peats. We discuss how the key solubility controls on DOC associated with coupled physico-chemical factors of ionic strength, acid deposition recovery, soil hydrology and temperature cannot readily be separated. Yet, despite evidence that all sites are recovering from acidification the soil-specific responses to environmental change have caused divergence in soil DOC concentration trends. The study shows that the properties of soils govern their specific response to an approximately common set of broad environmental drivers. Key soil properties are indicated to be drainage, sulphate and DOC sorption capacity. Soil properties need representation in process-models to understand and predict the role of soils in catchment to global C budgets. Catchment hydrological (i.e. transport) controls may, at present, be governing the more ubiquitous rises in river DOC concentration trends, but soil (i.e. source) controls provide the key to prediction of future C loss to waters and the atmosphere.


2011 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Banaś

The effect of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) on the environmental conditions of macrophytes has been studied in 35 lakes divided into soft- and hardwater: oligohumic (&lt;4.0 mg C dm<sup>-3</sup>), α-mesohumic (4.0-8.0 mg C dm<sup>-3</sup>), β-mesohumic (8.1-16.0 mg C dm<sup>-3</sup>) and polihumic (&gt;16.0 mg C dm<sup>-3</sup>). The optimum environmental conditions for macrophytes have been found in oligohumic lakes, characterised by low water colour and its good transparency. In soft- and hardwater lakes increasing concentration of DOC is accompanied with an increase in the colour (r=0.95), while the visibility decreases. With increasing DOC in the near-sediment layer the pH values decrease while the concentration of nitrogen increases and the concentration of phosphorus slightly increases. In hardwater lakes with increasing DOC concentration, the redox potential, conductivity, total hardness and calcium concentration in the near-sediment water decrease, whereas the content of CO<sup>2</sup> remains at a very low level.


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (23) ◽  
pp. 6915-6930 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. E. Vonk ◽  
S. E. Tank ◽  
P. J. Mann ◽  
R. G. M. Spencer ◽  
C. C. Treat ◽  
...  

Abstract. As Arctic regions warm and frozen soils thaw, the large organic carbon pool stored in permafrost becomes increasingly vulnerable to decomposition or transport. The transfer of newly mobilized carbon to the atmosphere and its potential influence upon climate change will largely depend on the degradability of carbon delivered to aquatic ecosystems. Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is a key regulator of aquatic metabolism, yet knowledge of the mechanistic controls on DOC biodegradability is currently poor due to a scarcity of long-term data sets, limited spatial coverage of available data, and methodological diversity. Here, we performed parallel biodegradable DOC (BDOC) experiments at six Arctic sites (16 experiments) using a standardized incubation protocol to examine the effect of methodological differences commonly used in the literature. We also synthesized results from 14 aquatic and soil leachate BDOC studies from across the circum-arctic permafrost region to examine pan-arctic trends in BDOC. An increasing extent of permafrost across the landscape resulted in higher DOC losses in both soil and aquatic systems. We hypothesize that the unique composition of (yedoma) permafrost-derived DOC combined with limited prior microbial processing due to low soil temperature and relatively short flow path lengths and transport times, contributed to a higher overall terrestrial and freshwater DOC loss. Additionally, we found that the fraction of BDOC decreased moving down the fluvial network in continuous permafrost regions, i.e. from streams to large rivers, suggesting that highly biodegradable DOC is lost in headwater streams. We also observed a seasonal (January–December) decrease in BDOC in large streams and rivers, but saw no apparent change in smaller streams or soil leachates. We attribute this seasonal change to a combination of factors including shifts in carbon source, changing DOC residence time related to increasing thaw-depth, increasing water temperatures later in the summer, as well as decreasing hydrologic connectivity between soils and surface water as the thaw season progresses. Our results suggest that future climate warming-induced shifts of continuous permafrost into discontinuous permafrost regions could affect the degradation potential of thaw-released DOC, the amount of BDOC, as well as its variability throughout the Arctic summer. We lastly recommend a standardized BDOC protocol to facilitate the comparison of future work and improve our knowledge of processing and transport of DOC in a changing Arctic.


1986 ◽  
Vol 84 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.I. Kim ◽  
G. Buckau ◽  
W. Zhuang

AbstractThe generation of humic colloids of Am(III) has been investigated in Gorleben groundwaters containing different amounts of humic substances. Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in these groundwaters consists mainly of humic acid and fulvic acid, which is present in a colloidal form through aggregation with trace heavy metal ions of groundwater constituents. Concentrations of these heavy metal ions are proportional to the DOC concentration. The generation of Am(III) pseudocolloids through geochemical interactions with humic colloids in different groundwaters is quantified by ultrafiltration as well as ultracentrifugation by the aid of radiometric concentration measurements. The speciation of dissolved Am(III) species in groundwaters is carried out by laser induced photoacoustic spectroscopy (LPAS).


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 593-609 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahdi Nakhavali ◽  
Pierre Friedlingstein ◽  
Ronny Lauerwald ◽  
Jing Tang ◽  
Sarah Chadburn ◽  
...  

Abstract. Current global models of the carbon (C) cycle consider only vertical gas exchanges between terrestrial or oceanic reservoirs and the atmosphere, thus not considering the lateral transport of carbon from the continents to the oceans. Therefore, those models implicitly consider all of the C which is not respired to the atmosphere to be stored on land and hence overestimate the land C sink capability. A model that represents the whole continuum from atmosphere to land and into the ocean would provide a better understanding of the Earth's C cycle and hence more reliable historical or future projections. A first and critical step in that direction is to include processes representing the production and export of dissolved organic carbon in soils. Here we present an original representation of dissolved organic C (DOC) processes in the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES-DOCM) that integrates a representation of DOC production in terrestrial ecosystems based on the incomplete decomposition of organic matter, DOC decomposition within the soil column, and DOC export to the river network via leaching. The model performance is evaluated in five specific sites for which observations of soil DOC concentration are available. Results show that the model is able to reproduce the DOC concentration and controlling processes, including leaching to the riverine system, which is fundamental for integrating terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Future work should include the fate of exported DOC in the river system as well as DIC and POC export from soil.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document