Current forest carbon fixation fuels stream CO 2 emissionsShow others and affiliations
2019 (English)In: Nature Communications, E-ISSN 2041-1723, Vol. 10, no 1, article id 1876Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Stream CO 2 emissions contribute significantly to atmospheric climate forcing. While there are strong indications that groundwater inputs sustain these emissions, the specific biogeochemical pathways and timescales involved in this lateral CO 2 export are still obscure. Here, via an extensive radiocarbon ( 14 C) characterisation of CO 2 and DOC in stream water and its groundwater sources in an old-growth boreal forest, we demonstrate that the 14 C-CO 2 is consistently in tune with the current atmospheric 14 C-CO 2 level and shows little association with the 14 C-DOC in the same waters. Our findings thus indicate that stream CO 2 emissions act as a shortcut that returns CO 2 recently fixed by the forest vegetation to the atmosphere. Our results expose a positive feedback mechanism within the C budget of forested catchments, where stream CO 2 emissions will be highly sensitive to changes in forest C allocation patterns associated with climate and land-use changes. © 2019, The Author(s).
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Nature Publishing Group , 2019. Vol. 10, no 1, article id 1876
Keywords [en]
biofuel, carbon 14, deoxycorticosterone, ground water, inorganic compound, air-soil interaction, air-water interaction, biogeochemical cycle, carbon dioxide, carbon emission, carbon fixation, carbon isotope, catchment, climate change, climate forcing, dissolved organic carbon, feedback mechanism, groundwater resource, land use change, alkalinity, Article, budget, carbon footprint, Catchment C budget, chemical analysis, forest, geochemical analysis, mass spectrometry, mineralization, photosynthetic photon flux density, positive feedback, precipitation, radiometric dating, riparian ecosystem, riparian species, soil analysis, water sampling
National Category
Oceanography, Hydrology and Water Resources
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-57255DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-09922-3Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85064954608OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-57255DiVA, id: diva2:1615666
Note
Funding details: 1947.1015, NRCF010001; Funding details: Natural Environment Research Council, NERC; Funding details: Vetenskapsrådet, VR, 2012-3919; Funding text 1: This study was supported by the Swedish Research Council (contract: 2012-3919 to K. Bishop), the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Radiocarbon Facility NRCF010001 (allocation number 1947.1015) and the Department of Earth Sciences at Uppsala University. Financial support from the Swedish Research Council and contributing research institutes to the Swedish Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS-Sweden) research infrastructure and the Swedish Infrastructure for Ecosystem Science (SITES) are also acknowledged. The study further benefitted from support by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg foundation. We also thank Joachim Audet and the Krycklan Catchment Study crew for field support.
2021-11-302021-11-302023-06-02Bibliographically approved