Methane emissions in the Arctic are important, and may be contributing to global warming. While methane emission rates from Arctic lakes are well documented, methods are needed to quantify the relative contribution of active layer groundwater to the overall lake methane budget. Here we report measurements of natural tracers of soil/groundwater, radon, and radium, along with methane concentration in Toolik Lake, Alaska, to evaluate the role active layer water plays as an exogenous source for lake methane. Average concentrations of methane, radium, and radon were all elevated in the active layer compared with lake water (1.6 × 104 nM, 61.6 dpm⋅m−3, and 4.5 × 105 dpm⋅m−3 compared with 1.3 × 102 nM, 5.7 dpm⋅m−3, and 4.4 × 103 dpm⋅m−3, respectively). Methane transport from the active layer to Toolik Lake based on the geochemical tracer radon (up to 2.9 g⋅m−2⋅y−1) can account for a large fraction of methane emissions from this lake. Strong but spatially and temporally variable correlations between radon activity and methane concentrations (r2 > 0.69) in lake water suggest that the parameters that control methane discharge from the active layer also vary. Warming in the Arctic may expand the active layer and increase the discharge, thereby increasing the methane flux to lakes and from lakes to the atmosphere, exacerbating global warming. More work is needed to quantify and elucidate the processes that control methane fluxes from the active layer to predict how this flux might change in the future and to evaluate the regional and global contribution of active layer water associated methane inputs.

Here, we quantify the flux of methane to the coastal Arctic and North Pacific Oceans via submarine groundwater discharge (SGD), by use of naturally occurring radium isotopes as groundwater tracers, combined with methane concentration measurements of coastal groundwater. Our findings indicate the flux of methane through this process is much greater in the coastal North Pacific (35 ± 27 mg m−1 d−1) than the Arctic Ocean (4.1 ± 0.6 to 11.8 ± 3.9 mg m−1 d−1). The dominant controls on methane flux through SGD were not methane concentrations in the aquifer but rather the hydrologic characteristics of each site that mitigated or intensified the SGD water volume flux (120 ± 50 m3 m−1 d−1 in the North Pacific compared to 12 ± 4 m3 m−1 d−1 in the Arctic). Tidal pumping was observed to be an especially important control on SGD flux at the North Pacific site.

ABSTRACT:We quantified groundwater discharge and associated nutrient fluxes to Monterey Bay, California, during the wet and dry seasons using excess 224 Ra as a tracer. Bioassay incubation experiments were conducted to document the response of bloom-forming phytoplankton to submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) input. Our data indicate that the high nutrient content (nitrate and silica) in groundwater can stimulate the growth of bloom-forming phytoplankton. The elevated concentrations of nitrate in groundwater around Monterey Bay are consistent with agriculture, landfill, and rural housing, which are the primary land-uses in the area surrounding the study site. These findings indicate that SGD acts as a continual source of nutrients that can feed bloom-forming phytoplankton at our study site, constituting a nonpoint source of anthropogenic nutrients to Monterey Bay.

To better understand groundwater-surface water dynamics in high latitude areas, we conducted a field study at three sites in Alaska with varying permafrost coverage. The natural groundwater tracer ((222)Rn, radon) was used to evaluate groundwater discharge, and electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) was used to examine subsurface mixing dynamics. Different controls govern groundwater discharge at these sites. In areas with sporadic permafrost (Kasitsna Bay), the major driver of submarine groundwater discharge is tidal pumping, due to the large tidal oscillations, whereas at Point Barrow, a site with continuous permafrost and small tidal amplitudes, fluxes are mostly affected by seasonal permafrost thawing. Extended areas of low resistivity in the subsurface alongshore combined with high radon in surface water suggests that groundwater-surface water interactions might enhance heat transport into deeper permafrost layers promoting permafrost thawing, thereby enhancing groundwater discharge.