Geospatial Analysis of Alaskan Lakes Indicates Wetland Fraction and Surface Water Area Are Useful Predictors of Methane Ebullition

Abstract

Arctic-boreal lakes emit methane (CH4), a powerful greenhouse gas. Recent studies suggest ebullition might be a dominant methane emission pathway in lakes but its drivers are poorly understood. Various predictors of lake methane ebullition have been proposed but are challenging to evaluate owing to different geographical characteristics, field locations, and sample densities. Here we compare large geospatial data sets of lake area, lake perimeter, permafrost, land cover, temperature, soil organic carbon content, depth, and greenness with remotely sensed methane ebullition estimates for 5,143 Alaskan lakes. We find that lake wetland fraction (LWF), a measure of lake wetland and littoral zone area, is a leading predictor of methane ebullition (adj. R 2 = 0.211), followed by lake surface area (adj. R 2 = 0.201). LWF is inversely correlated with lake area, thus higher wetland fraction in smaller lakes might explain a commonly cited inverse relationship between lake area and methane ebullition. Lake perimeter (adj. R 2 = 0.176) and temperature (adj. R 2 = 0.157) are moderate predictors of lake ebullition, and soil organic carbon content, permafrost, lake depth, and greenness are weak predictors. The low adjusted R 2 values are typical and informative for methane attribution studies. Our leading model, which uses lake area, temperature, and LWF (adj. R 2 = 0.325, n = 5,130) performs slightly better than leading multivariate models from similar studies. Our results suggest landscape-scale geospatial analyses can complement smaller field studies, for attributing Arctic-boreal lake methane emissions to readily available environmental variables.