Abstract
The Western Siberia Lowland (WSL), the world’s largest permafrost peatland, is of importance for understanding the high-latitude carbon (C) cycle and its response to climate change. Warming temperatures increase permafrost thaw and production of greenhouse gases. Also, permafrost thaw leads to the formation of lakes which are hotspots for atmospheric C emissions. Although lakes occupy ~6% of WSL, lake C emissions from WSL remain poorly quantified. Here we show high C emissions from lakes across all permafrost zones of WSL. The C emissions were especially high in shoulder seasons and in colder permafrost-rich regions. The total C emission from permafrost-affected lakes of WSL equals ~12 ± 2.6 Tg C yr−1 and is 2-times greater than region’s C export to the Arctic coast. The results show that C emission from WSL lakes is a significant component in the high-latitude C cycle, but also suggest that C emission may decrease with warming.
Highlights
The Western Siberia Lowland (WSL), the world’s largest permafrost peatland, is of importance for understanding the high-latitude carbon (C) cycle and its response to climate change
Seasonal lake C fluxes. 85% of all studied lakes across different permafrost zones of WSL (Fig. 1) were supersaturated in pressure of CO2 (pCO2) (1044 ± 554 ppmv, mean ± interquartile range, IQR) and all lakes were supersaturated in pCH4 (20.4 ± 21.8 ppmv) (Supplementary Table 1)
Of the underlying mechanisms, the seasonality in C fluxes from WSL lakes emphasizes the need for integrating spring and autumn C fluxes estimates for accurately assessing annual lake C emission
Summary
The Western Siberia Lowland (WSL), the world’s largest permafrost peatland, is of importance for understanding the high-latitude carbon (C) cycle and its response to climate change. Available data suggest that high-latitude lakes, including permafrost-affected lakes, represent a net source of C into the atmosphere[8,9,10,11] and are recognized as important contributors to regional and global climate[12]. These estimates, often do not cover seasonal variability in lake C emissions, that if neglected could result in major errors in quantifying annual lake C contribution to atmospheric C budget[8]. Such lack of data for annual lake C emissions across a complete permafrost gradient implies that the role of lakes in permafrostclimate feedback is poorly constrained and can lead to large uncertainties when predicting climate change impacts following permafrost thaw
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