Trends and Controls on Greenhouse Gas Fluxes from Arctic and Alpine Freshwaters

Dear Colleagues,

Polar and alpine freshwaters are experiencing warming and increasing precipitation, as well as more frequent weather extremes. Rapidly thawing glaciers and permafrost export water and organic matter, often contributing to the creation and enrichment of new streams, ponds, and lakes. Along with carbon, these freshwaters receive changing amounts of bioavailable nutrients. Climate-forced changes in the cryosphere, including glacier recession and permafrost degradation, force downstream ecosystems into a warmer and more productive future. Depending on the inflow characteristics, polar and alpine freshwater systems are greening or browning with respective metabolic consequences. For lakes, higher surficial energy retention brings on stratification, while warming leads to unprecedented oxygen depletion at a depth that catalyses the production of CH₄ and N₂O.

Arctic and alpine rivers, on the other hand, are releasing more CO₂ to the atmosphere, and have also become a seasonally large CH₄ source. The overall picture is that polar and alpine freshwaters contribute more and more GHGs to the atmosphere. However, their carbon sequestration potential is also likely to increase along with surface area, lake volume, and surface-to-bottom temperature differential. This Special Issue aims to gather experimental, observational, and theoretical work, broadening our understanding on how changes in polar and alpine freshwaters impact greenhouse gas emissions now and into the future.

Polar and alpine freshwaters are strongly influenced by climate change. Changes in their physical, chemical, and biological structuring are reflected in ecosystem-scale greenhouse gas fluxes. In fact, some lakes and rivers forming on the permafrost have been shown to act as pipelines releasing globally significant amounts of CO₂ and CH₄ to the atmosphere. While there is ample evidence on the magnitude of these emissions, there is relatively little work focusing on their control, both in space and time.

For this Special Issue, we invite all research that aims to understand what drives the flux of GHGs in arctic and alpine freshwaters in the context of ecosystem connectivity and global environmental change.

Dr. Maciej Bartosiewicz
Dr. Lukasz Stachnik
Prof. Dr. Jacob Clement Yde
Guest Editors

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