Oxygen Depletion in Arctic Lakes: Circumpolar Trends, Biogeochemical Processes, and Implications of Climate Change

Abstract

AbstractPolar amplification of climate change has the potential to cause large‐scale shifts in the dissolved oxygen (DO) dynamics of Arctic lakes, with implications for fish survival, greenhouse gas production, and drinking water quality. While DO is also a sentinel of environmental changes of physical, chemical, and biological nature (e.g., ice cover, temperature, dissolved organic carbon, photosynthesis, and respiration), no synthesis exists of current knowledge of DO dynamics across the diverse freshwater systems of the Arctic. We thus conducted a systematic review of the literature that yielded DO data from 167 sites north of the Subarctic limit (based on vegetation zones), spanning 76 years and including 40 sites with time series. The compilation revealed insufficient observations for adequate representativeness of oxygen dynamics over Arctic ecosystem gradients. We described the main processes controlling DO budgets of Arctic lakes and tested relationships of summer oxygen depletion with maximum depth and latitude. The meta‐analysis showed that most sites with low O2 concentrations were shallow (<10 m) and situated toward the southern end of the latitudinal gradient. Permanently stratified lakes with deep, perennially anoxic basins were located toward the northern end of the gradient. By way of a conceptual model, we identified the direct and indirect drivers and mechanisms that lead to changes in oxygen budgets in the context of the warming Arctic. This comprehensive update on available data allowed us to suggest future research directions and recommend the use of moored instruments for continuous all‐season observations, combined with modeling, remote sensing, and paleo‐reconstructions.