Global carbon dioxide efflux from rivers enhanced by high nocturnal emissions

Lluís Gómez-Gener, Gerard Rocher-Ros, Tom Battin, Matthew J. Cohen, Higo J. Dalmagro, Kerry J. Dinsmore, Travis W. Drake, Clément Duvert, Alex Enrich-Prast, Åsa Horgby, Mark S. Johnson, Lily Kirk, Fausto Machado-Silva, Nicholas S. Marzolf, Mollie J. McDowell, William H. McDowell, Heli Miettinen, Anne K. Ojala, Hannes Peter, Jukka PumpanenLishan Ran, Diego A. Riveros-Iregui, Isaac R. Santos, Johan Six, Emily H. Stanley, Marcus B. Wallin, Shane A. White, Ryan A. Sponseller

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

118 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to the atmosphere from running waters are estimated to be four times greater than the total carbon (C) flux to the oceans. However, these fluxes remain poorly constrained because of substantial spatial and temporal variability in dissolved CO2 concentrations. Using a global compilation of high-frequency CO2 measurements, we demonstrate that nocturnal CO2 emissions are on average 27% (0.9 gC m−2 d−1) greater than those estimated from diurnal concentrations alone. Constraints on light availability due to canopy shading or water colour are the principal controls on observed diel (24 hour) variation, suggesting this nocturnal increase arises from daytime fixation of CO2 by photosynthesis. Because current global estimates of CO2 emissions to the atmosphere from running waters (0.65–1.8 PgC yr−1) rely primarily on discrete measurements of dissolved CO2 obtained during the day, they substantially underestimate the magnitude of this flux. Accounting for night-time CO2 emissions may elevate global estimates from running waters to the atmosphere by 0.20–0.55 PgC yr−1.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)289-294
Number of pages13
JournalNature Geoscience
Volume14
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - May 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We thank S. Blackburn, J. Crawford, the Krycklan Catchment study and the Swedish Infrastructure for Ecosystem Science for sharing data used in this study. This study was largely supported by a Formas grant to R.A.S. Datasets provided by the StreamPULSE Network were funded by the National Science Foundation Macrosystems program (NSF Grant EF-1442439). D.A.R.-I. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation (Grant EAR-1847331).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.

Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Global carbon dioxide efflux from rivers enhanced by high nocturnal emissions'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this