Dissolved black carbon (DBC) is the largest known slow-cycling organic carbon pool in the world’s oceans. Atmospheric deposition could significantly contribute to the oceanic DBC pool, but respective information is lacking. Here we estimate that, during the dust outbreak season, the atmospheric dry deposition of water-soluble black carbon (WSBC) is ~ 40% of the riverine input to the China coastal seas. The molecular composition of atmospheric WSBC determined by ultrahigh-resolution mass spectrometry, reveals similar soil-derived sources as for riverine discharge. WSBC is significantly positively correlated with water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC) in marine aerosols, and water-soluble black carbon contributes on average 2.8 ± 0.65% to the total WSOC. Based on this relationship, the global atmospheric deposition of DBC to the ocean is estimated to be 1.8 ± 0.83 Tg yr−1. Anticipated future changes in biomass burning and dust mobilization might increase these numbers, with consequences for regional ecosystems and global carbon reservoirs.

Terrestrial vegetation and soils hold three times more carbon than the atmosphere. Much debate concerns how anthropogenic activity will perturb these surface reservoirs, potentially exacerbating ongoing changes to the climate system. Uncertainties specifically persist in extrapolating point-source observations to ecosystem-scale budgets and fluxes, which require consideration of vertical and lateral processes on multiple temporal and spatial scales. To explore controls on organic carbon (OC) turnover at the river basin scale, we present radiocarbon (14C) ages on two groups of molecular tracers of plant-derived carbon—leaf-wax lipids and lignin phenols—from a globally distributed suite of rivers. We find significant negative relationships between the 14C age of these biomarkers and mean annual temperature and precipitation. Moreover, riverine biospheric-carbon ages scale proportionally with basin-wide soil carbon turnover times and soil 14C ages, implicating OC cycling within soils as a primary control on exported biomarker ages and revealing a broad distribution of soil OC reactivities. The ubiquitous occurrence of a long-lived soil OC pool suggests soil OC is globally vulnerable to perturbations by future temperature and precipitation increase. Scaling of riverine biospheric-carbon ages with soil OC turnover shows the former can constrain the sensitivity of carbon dynamics to environmental controls on broad spatial scales. Extracting this information from fluvially dominated sedimentary sequences may inform past variations in soil OC turnover in response to anthropogenic and/or climate perturbations. In turn, monitoring riverine OC composition may help detect future climate-change–induced perturbations of soil OC turnover and stocks.

Subsoil contains more than half of soil organic carbon (SOC) globally and is conventionally assumed to be relatively unresponsive to warming compared to the topsoil. Here, we show substantial changes in carbon allocation and dynamics of the subsoil but not topsoil in the Qinghai-Tibetan alpine grasslands over 5 years of warming. Specifically, warming enhanced the accumulation of newly synthesized ( 14 C-enriched) carbon in the subsoil slow-cycling pool (silt-clay fraction) but promoted the decomposition of plant-derived lignin in the fastcycling pool (macroaggregates). These changes mirrored an accumulation of lipids and sugars at the expense of lignin in the warmed bulk subsoil, likely associated with shortened soil freezing period and a deepening root system. As warming is accompanied by deepening roots in a wide range of ecosystems, root-driven accrual of slow-cycling pool may represent an important and overlooked mechanism for a potential long-term carbon sink at depth. Moreover, given the contrasting sensitivity of SOC dynamics at varied depths, warming studies focusing only on surface soils may vastly misrepresent shifts in ecosystem carbon storage under climate change.

The Changjiang is the most important source of freshwater and dissolved organic matter (DOM) for the East China Sea. However, knowledge regarding the sources, seasonal fluxes, and fluvial transport of terrigenous DOM (tDOM) in the Changjiang is lacking. To fill this knowledge gap, we measured dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and dissolved lignin in water samples collected in the middle and lower Changjiang under different hydrological conditions. Additional samples were collected biweekly in the lower Changjiang. Through comparisons with other rivers, we found that the DOC in the Changjiang is mainly from soil organic matter and has a higher fraction of tDOM during flood. Mass balance model results indicate that approximately 33% of the dissolved lignin discharged into the middle and lower Changjiang is removed during its transport to the lower reach during both low-discharge and flood periods. Based on a comparison of the removal rates under these two contrasting hydrological conditions and considering the lower organic carbon content and fine grain size of the Changjiang's suspended particles, we speculate that the major process for the removal of dissolved lignin is sorption, and potentially flocculation by suspended particles. Changjiang discharges 1.4 ± 0.10 Tg yr À1 and 8.6 ± 0.30 Gg yr À1 DOC and dissolved lignin to the estuary during the period of July 2010 to June 2011, respectively. Seasonal distributions of DOC and dissolved lignin fluxes are controlled by water discharge, which will be affected by future climate change and the Three Gorges Dam.

Hydrology, especially extreme hydrological events, has been recognized as an important driver of the land‐to‐ocean export of terrigenous dissolved organic matter (tDOM). Nevertheless, how various types of tDOM that differ in source and reactivity respond to changes in hydrology is not known. Seasonal and event exports of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), dissolved black carbon (DBC), and dissolved lignin were studied in a small subtropical river. We found that seasonal variations in DBC concentration were significantly related to hydrology, while DOC and dissolved lignin were not. In contrast, DOC, DBC, and dissolved lignin changed similarly during an extreme rain event. The variation magnitudes of DOC, DBC, and dissolved lignin concentrations were in the lower end compared to other rivers, which may be related to the limited coverage of wetlands and riparian vegetation and poor development of organic‐rich soil. Dilution effects were observed when the runoff exceeded 0.4 mm/hr, and the fluxes of both DBC and dissolved lignin decreased during the runoff peak, which was caused by surface flow and potentially by removal processes during peak discharge. Our results suggest that the influence of hydrology varies with tDOM source and reactivity and that high enough runoff (e.g., 0.7 mm/hr in the Jiulong River) may not enhance the export rate of tDOM. However, our study was carried out in a small watershed with limited wetlands and riparian vegetation, and more studies are needed to verify whether this trend is consistent among global rivers.