Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 18 January 1991:
Vol. 251. no. 4991, pp. 298 - 301
DOI: 10.1126/science.251.4991.298
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

Arctic Lakes and Streams as Gas Conduits to the Atmosphere: Implications for Tundra Carbon Budgets

GEORGE W. KLING 1, GEORGE W. KIPPHUT 2, and MICHAEL C. MILLER 3

1 Ecosystems Center, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA 02543
2 Institute of Marine Science, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK 99775
3 Department of Biological Sciences, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221

Arctic tundra has large amounts of stored carbon and is thought to be a sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) (0.1 to 0.3 petagram of carbon per year) (1 petagram = 1015 grams). But this estimate of carbon balance is only for terrestrial ecosystems. Measurements of the partial pressure of CO2 in 29 aquatic ecosystems across arctic Alaska showed that in most cases (27 of 29) CO2 was released to the atmosphere. This CO2 probably originates in terrestrial environments; erosion of particulate carbon plus ground-water transport of dissolved carbon from tundra contribute to the CO2 flux from surface waters to the atmosphere. If this mechanism is typical of that of other tundra areas, then current estimates of the arctic terrestrial sink for atmospheric CO2 may be 20 percent too high.

Submitted on September 13, 1990
Accepted on November 28, 1990


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
A plausible hydrological scenario for the Bolling-Allerod atmospheric methane increase.
R. M. Kalin, R. M. Kalin, and J. L. Jirikowic (1996)
The Holocene 6, 111-118
   Abstract »    PDF »
Carbon Dioxide Supersaturation in the Surface Waters of Lakes.
J. J. Cole, N. F. Caraco, G. W. Kling, and T. K. Kratz (1994)
Science 265, 1568-1570
   Abstract »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)