Climate‐Driven Changes in Dissolved Organic Carbon and Water Clarity in Arctic Lakes of West Greenland

Fowler, Rachel; Osburn, Christopher L.; Saros, Jasmine E.

doi:10.1029/2019jg005170

Cited by 10 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 48 publications

(87 reference statements)

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“…This result is consistent with the current hypothesis that precipitation and permafrost warming are altering terrestrial-to-aquatic hydrologic connectivity. This impacts downstream delivery of terrestrial solutes ( 78 ), including organic carbon, to lakes ( 21 , 79 ), which, in turn, could negatively influence primary productivity and further induce net heterotrophy ( 80 ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Declining greenness in Arctic-boreal lakes

Kuhn

Butman

2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The highest concentration of the world’s lakes are found in Arctic-boreal regions [C. Verpoorter, T. Kutser, D. A. Seekell, L. J. Tranvik, Geophys. Res. Lett. 41, 6396–6402 (2014)], and consequently are undergoing the most rapid warming [J. E. Overland et al., Arctic Report Card (2018)]. However, the ecological response of Arctic-boreal lakes to warming remains highly uncertain. Historical trends in lake color from remote sensing observations can provide insights into changing lake ecology, yet have not been examined at the pan-Arctic scale. Here, we analyze time series of 30-m Landsat growing season composites to quantify trends in lake greenness for >4 × 105 waterbodies in boreal and Arctic western North America. We find lake greenness declined overall by 15% from the first to the last decade of analysis within the 6.3 × 106-km2 study region but with significant spatial variability. Greening declines were more likely to be found in areas also undergoing increases in air temperature and precipitation. These findings support the hypothesis that warming has increased connectivity between lakes and the land surface [A. Bring et al., J. Geophys. Res. Biogeosciences 121, 621–649 (2016)], with implications for lake carbon cycling and energy budgets. Our study provides spatially explicit information linking climate to pan-Arctic lake color changes, a finding that will help target future ecological monitoring in remote yet rapidly changing regions.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Declining greenness in Arctic-boreal lakes

Kuhn

Butman

2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…The selected study lakes, SS2 and SS901, are located along a temperature‐precipitation gradient, with cooler and wetter climate closer by the ice sheet (Lake SS901), and warmer and drier climate inland (Lake SS2) (Figure 1; Fowler et al., 2020). Lakes are comparable in size, depth, and lake water nutrient concentrations, but differ in their concentrations of DOC which affects light penetration (Table 1; Saros et al., 2016).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Under Ice and Early Summer Phytoplankton Dynamics in Two Arctic Lakes with Differing DOC

et al. 2021

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The Arctic is covered with lakes that freeze over for a significant part of the year. Ice formation leads to the establishment of a distinct environment within the lake relative to the open-water period by limiting gas exchange at the air-water interface, wind-driven mixing (Denfeld et al., 2018), allochthonous input of terrestrial carbon and nutrients (Bertilsson et al., 2013), and also reducing the amount of light penetrating through the water column (Kirillin et al., 2012). All of these factors-light penetration, nutrient concentrations, and thermal structure of the water column-affect biomass and community structure of phytoplankton. Despite the fact that ice covers Arctic lakes for the majority of the annual cycle, most of what we know about phytoplankton communities and biogeochemical dynamics in these lakes is based on the open-water season. Considering the rapid changes in climate affecting phenology, ice-out dates, and abiotic conditions

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“…Besides this, our results showed significant relationships between climate (MAT and MAP) and DOC flux from throughfall in coniferous forests but did not for broadleaved forests (see Figure 3a,b and Table S1 in the Supplementary Materials). This may be attributed to the fact that a high MAP may enhance DOC flux by increasing the plant carbon inputs, although a high MAP could generate a dilution effect on DOC concentration in broadleaved forests [25,56]. Furthermore, the increasing trends of DOC fluxes from throughfall with the MAP in coniferous forests were inconsistent with an early synthesis showing no relationships in temperate forests [14].…”

Section: Differences In Doc Flux Between Coniferous and Broadleaved F...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Dissolved Organic Carbon Flux Is Driven by Plant Traits More Than Climate across Global Forest Types

Shao

et al. 2022

Forests

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Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) is one of the most important components in the global carbon cycle, which is largely influenced by climate and plant traits. Although previous studies have examined the impacts of climatic factors (e.g., mean annual temperature (MAT) and precipitation (MAP)) or plant traits (e.g., leaf area index, leaf nitrogen) on DOC, the relative importance of climate and plant traits on DOC flux remains unclear on a global scale. In this study, we compiled 153 pairs of DOC observational data from 84 forest sites to explore the relative importance of climate and plant traits on DOC flux with a linear mixed model, variance partitioning, and random forest approaches. Our results showed that DOC fluxes from throughfall and the litter layer were higher in broadleaved forests than those in coniferous forests. Throughfall-DOC flux increased significantly with MAT and MAP in coniferous forests, but that from the litter layer showed no significant correlations with climate factors. In broadleaved forests, throughfall-DOC flux increased with potential evapotranspiration (PET), while that from the litter layer was positively correlated with MAT. Meanwhile, throughfall-DOC flux had negative relationships with specific leaf area (SLA), leaf nitrogen content (LN), and leaf phosphorus content (LP) in broadleaved forests, but it showed a positive correlation with SLA in coniferous forests. Litter-layer-DOC flux increased with LN in broadleaved forests, but this correlation was the opposite in coniferous forests. Using the variance partitioning approach, plant traits contributed to 29.0% and 76.4% of the variation of DOC from throughfall and litter layer, respectively, whereas climate only explained 19.1% and 8.3%, respectively. These results indicate that there is a more important contribution by plant traits than by climate in driving the spatial variability of global forest DOC flux, which may help enhance forest management as a terrestrial carbon sink in the future. Our findings suggest the necessity of incorporating plant traits into land surface models for improving predictions regarding the forest carbon cycle.

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Climate‐Driven Changes in Dissolved Organic Carbon and Water Clarity in Arctic Lakes of West Greenland

Cited by 10 publications

References 48 publications

Declining greenness in Arctic-boreal lakes

Declining greenness in Arctic-boreal lakes

Under Ice and Early Summer Phytoplankton Dynamics in Two Arctic Lakes with Differing DOC

Dissolved Organic Carbon Flux Is Driven by Plant Traits More Than Climate across Global Forest Types

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