The relationship between subsurface hydrology and dissolved carbon fluxes for a sub-arctic catchment

Lyon, Steve W.; Mörth, Magnus; Humborg, Christoph; Giesler, Reiner; Destouni, Georgia

doi:10.5194/hess-14-941-2010

Cited by 54 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…This may have profound effects not only on C losses but also on the forms of C lost (Vonk and Gustafsson, 2013). For instance, although there are indications of increased losses of DOC (Frey and Smith, 2005) from northern latitude ecosystems, changes in hydrological flow pathways may also alter the proportion between organic and dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) export (Lyon et al, 2010a;Jantze et al, 2013). Loss of permafrost areas due to degradation Klaminder et al, 2008) or a deepening of the active layer may increase the importance of subsurface flow pathways (Striegl et al, 2005;Walvoord and Striegl, 2007;Lyon et al, 2009Lyon et al, , 2010b.…”

Section: R Giesler Et Al: Catchment-scale Dissolved Carbon Concentrmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Lyon et al (2010a) demonstrated this connection between flow pathway distribution and the travel time of water through a catchment and carbon export for the subarctic Abiskojokken catchment in northern Sweden using a detailed distributed modeling approach. While such studies offer promise for estimation of future C loads through simulation, basic knowledge of how hydrologic responses will shift in the future due to climatic changes in arctic and subarctic areas is necessary.…”

Section: R Giesler Et Al: Catchment-scale Dissolved Carbon Concentrmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The daily stream flows for the remainder of the hydrologic year were approximated by scaling observed stream flows from stream 6 to each individual catchment using catchment area ratios. The influence of this approximation is assumed to be minimal since the 7 months where flows were approximated account for only about 10 % of the annual flow (considering long-term observations at stream 6) and this low flow winter period is noticeably less dynamic compared to the spring freshet and summer high flows (Lyon et al, 2010a). To explore the potential impact of uncertainty in discharge measurements on subsequent annual load estimates we have assumed a ±15 % measurement error associated with the rating curves.…”

Section: R Giesler Et Al: Catchment-scale Dissolved Carbon Concentrmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For stream 6 (Abiskojokka) considered in the study of Lyon et al (2010a) and Jantze et al (2013), daily stream flows for the entire hydrologic year 1 May 2008 through 30 April 2009 were measured by and available through the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI; Gage ID 957). For the remaining sites, daily stream flow was observed from 1 May 2008 through 1 October 2008.…”

Section: R Giesler Et Al: Catchment-scale Dissolved Carbon Concentrmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Catchment-scale dissolved carbon concentrations and export estimates across six subarctic streams in northern Sweden

et al. 2014

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Abstract. Climatic change is currently enhancing permafrost thawing and the flow of water through the landscape in subarctic and arctic catchments, with major consequences for the carbon export to aquatic ecosystems. We studied stream water carbon export in several tundra-dominated catchments in northern Sweden. There were clear seasonal differences in both dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) concentrations. The highest DOC concentrations occurred during the spring freshet while the highest DIC concentrations were always observed during winter baseflow conditions for the six catchments considered in this study. Long-term trends for the period 1982 to 2010 for one of the streams showed that DIC concentrations has increased by 9 % during the 28 yr of measurement while no clear trend was found for DOC. Similar increasing trends were also found for conductivity, Ca and Mg. When trends were discretized into individual months, we found a significant linear increase in DIC concentrations with time for September, November and December. In these subarctic catchments, the annual mass of C exported as DIC was in the same order of magnitude as DOC; the average proportion of DIC to the total dissolved C exported was 61 % for the six streams. Furthermore, there was a direct relationship between total runoff and annual dissolved carbon fluxes for these six catchments. These relationships were more prevalent for annual DIC exports than annual DOC exports in this region. Our results also highlight that both DOC and DIC can be important in highlatitude ecosystems. This is particularly relevant in environments where thawing permafrost and changes to subsurface ice due to global warming can influence stream water fluxes of C. The large proportion of stream water DIC flux also has implications on regional C budgets and needs to be considered in order to understand climate-induced feedback mechanisms across the landscape.

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Section: R Giesler Et Al: Catchment-scale Dissolved Carbon Concentrmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: R Giesler Et Al: Catchment-scale Dissolved Carbon Concentrmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: R Giesler Et Al: Catchment-scale Dissolved Carbon Concentrmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: R Giesler Et Al: Catchment-scale Dissolved Carbon Concentrmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Catchment-scale dissolved carbon concentrations and export estimates across six subarctic streams in northern Sweden

et al. 2014

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“…Uhlenbrook and Sieber, 2005;Vaché and McDonnell, 2006;Iorgulescu et al, 2007;McGuire et al, 2007;Page et al, 2007;Fenicia et al, 2010;Lindström et al, 2010;Lyon et al, 2010b;Birkel et al, 2011a,c;Arheimer et al, 2012;Capell et al, 2012b;Bertuzzo et al, 2013). For example, Dunn et al (2007Dunn et al ( , 2010) used a conceptual model in the context of virtual experiments (cf.…”

Section: Hrachowitz Et Al: What Can Flux Tracking Teach Us About mentioning

confidence: 99%

What can flux tracking teach us about water age distribution patterns and their temporal dynamics?

Hrachowitz

Savenije

Bogaard

et al. 2013

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

272

443

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Abstract. The complex interactions of runoff generation processes underlying the hydrological response of streams remain not entirely understood at the catchment scale. Extensive research has demonstrated the utility of tracers for both inferring flow path distributions and constraining model parameterizations. While useful, the common use of linearity assumptions, i.e. time invariance and complete mixing, in these studies provides only partial understanding of actual process dynamics. Here we use long-term (< 20 yr) precipitation, flow and tracer (chloride) data of three contrasting upland catchments in the Scottish Highlands to inform integrated conceptual models investigating different mixing assumptions. Using the models as diagnostic tools in a functional comparison, water and tracer fluxes were then tracked with the objective of exploring the differences between different water age distributions, such as flux and resident water age distributions, and characterizing the contrasting water age pattern of the dominant hydrological processes in the three study catchments to establish an improved understanding of the wetness-dependent temporal dynamics of these distributions.The results highlight the potential importance of partial mixing processes which can be dependent on the hydrological functioning of a catchment. Further, tracking tracer fluxes showed that the various components of a model can be characterized by fundamentally different water age distributions which may be highly sensitive to catchment wetness history, available storage, mixing mechanisms, flow path connectivity and the relative importance of the different hydrological processes involved. Flux tracking also revealed that, although negligible for simulating the runoff response, the omission of processes such as interception evaporation can result in considerably biased water age distributions. Finally, the modeling indicated that water age distributions in the three study catchments do have long, power-law tails, which are generated by the interplay of flow path connectivity, the relative importance of different flow paths as well as by the mixing mechanisms involved. In general this study highlights the potential of customized integrated conceptual models, based on multiple mixing assumptions, to infer system internal transport dynamics and their sensitivity to catchment wetness states.

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Intra‐annual variability of organic carbon concentrations in running waters: Drivers along a climatic gradient

Winterdahl

Erlandsson

Bishop

et al. 2014

Global Biogeochemical Cycles

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Trends in surface water dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations have received considerable scientific interest during recent decades. However, intra-annual DOC variability is often orders of magnitude larger than long-term trends. Unraveling the controls on intra-annual DOC dynamics holds the key to a better understanding of long-term changes and their ecological significance. We quantified and characterized intra-annual DOC variability and compared it with long-term DOC trends in 136 streams and rivers, varying in size and geographical characteristics, across a 1400 km latitudinal gradient during 2000-2010. Discharge, temperature, and month of the year were the most significant predictors of intra-annual DOC variability in a majority of the running waters. Relationships between DOC, discharge, and temperature were, however, different along a mean annual temperature (MAT) gradient. Running waters with low MAT generally displayed positive DOC-discharge correlations whereas the relationships in sites with higher MAT were more variable. This reflected contrasting relationships between temperature and discharge with discharge positively correlated with temperature in cold areas, while it was negatively correlated with temperature in catchments with higher MAT. Sites where flow, temperature, and month were poorly related to intra-annual DOC dynamics were large catchments or sites with extensive upstream lake cover. DOC trends were generally much smaller than intra-annual DOC variability and did not show any north-south gradient. Our findings suggest that DOC in running waters could respond to a changing climate in ways not predictable, or even discernible, from extrapolation of recent interannual trends.

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The relationship between subsurface hydrology and dissolved carbon fluxes for a sub-arctic catchment

Cited by 54 publications

References 50 publications

Catchment-scale dissolved carbon concentrations and export estimates across six subarctic streams in northern Sweden

Catchment-scale dissolved carbon concentrations and export estimates across six subarctic streams in northern Sweden

What can flux tracking teach us about water age distribution patterns and their temporal dynamics?

Intra‐annual variability of organic carbon concentrations in running waters: Drivers along a climatic gradient

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