Search

Coastal ecosystems release or absorb carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), but the net effects of these ecosystems on the radiative balance remain unknown. We compiled a dataset of observations from 738 sites from studies published between 1975 and 2020 to quantify CO2, CH4 and N2O fluxes in estuaries and coastal vegetation in ten global regions. We show that the CO2-equivalent (CO(2)e) uptake by coastal vegetation is decreased by 23-27% due to estuarine CO(2)e outgassing, resulting in a global median net sink of 391 or 444 TgCO(2)e yr(-1) using the 20- or 100-year global warming potentials, respectively. Globally, total coastal CH4 and N2O emissions decrease the coastal CO2 sink by 9-20%. Southeast Asia, North America and Africa are critical regional hotspots of GHG sinks. Understanding these hotspots can guide our efforts to strengthen coastal CO2 uptake while effectively reducing CH4 and N2O emissions. The authors show that estuarine and coastal vegetation are collectively a greenhouse gas (GHG) sink for the atmosphere, but methane and nitrous oxide emissions counteract the carbon dioxide uptake. Critical coastal GHG sink hotspots are identified in Southeast Asia, North America and Africa.

Leaching of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) from soils into the river network is an important component of the land carbon (C) budget. At regional to global scales, its significance has been estimated through simple mass budgets, often using multi-year averages of observed fluvial DOC fluxes as a proxy of DOC leaching due to the limited availability of observations of the leaching flux itself. This procedure leads to a systematic underestimation of the leaching flux because of the decay of DOC during fluvial transport. Moreover, this procedure does not allow for revealing spatiotemporal variability in DOC leaching from soils, which is vital to better understand the drivers of DOC leaching and its impact on the local soil C budget. In this study, we use the land surface model (LSM) ORCHILEAK to simulate the terrestrial C budget, including leaching of DOC from the soil and its subsequent reactive transport through the river network of Europe. The model performance is evaluated not only against the sparse observations of the soil DOC leaching rate, but also against the more abundant observations of fluxes and reactivity of DOC in rivers, providing further evidence that our simulated DOC fluxes are realistic. The model is then used to simulate the spatiotemporal patterns of DOC leaching across Europe over the period 1972–2012, quantifying both the environmental drivers of these patterns and the impact of DOC leaching on the land C budget. Over the simulation period, we find that, on average, 14.3 Tg C yr−1 of DOC is leached from land into European rivers, which is about 0.6 % of the terrestrial net primary production (NPP), a fraction significantly lower than that reported for tropical river networks. On average, 12.3 Tg C yr−1 of the leached DOC is finally exported to the coast via the river network, and the rest is respired during transit. DOC leaching presents a large seasonal variability, with the maximum occurring in winter and the minimum in summer, except for most parts of northern Europe, where the maximum occurs in spring due to snowmelt. The DOC leaching rate is generally low in warm and dry regions, and high in the cold and wet regions of Europe. Furthermore, runoff and the ratio between runoff from shallower flow paths on one hand and deep drainage and groundwater flow on the other hand are the main drivers of the spatiotemporal variation of DOC leaching. Temperature, as a major control of DOC production and decomposition rates in the soils, plays only a secondary role.

Knowledge of the spatial distribution of the fluxes of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and their temporal variability as well as flux attribution to natural and anthropogenic processes is essential to monitoring the progress in mitigating anthropogenic emissions under the Paris Agreement and to inform its global stocktake. This study provides a consolidated synthesis of CH4 and N2O emissions using bottom-up (BU) and top-down (TD) approaches for the European Union and UK (EU27 + UK) and updates earlier syntheses (Petrescu et al., 2020, 2021). The work integrates updated emission inventory data, process-based model results, data-driven sector model results and inverse modeling estimates, and it extends the previous period of 1990–2017 to 2019. BU and TD products are compared with European national greenhouse gas inventories (NGHGIs) reported by parties under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2021. Uncertainties in NGHGIs, as reported to the UNFCCC by the EU and its member states, are also included in the synthesis. Variations in estimates produced with other methods, such as atmospheric inversion models (TD) or spatially disaggregated inventory datasets (BU), arise from diverse sources including within-model uncertainty related to parameterization as well as structural differences between models. By comparing NGHGIs with other approaches, the activities included are a key source of bias between estimates, e.g., anthropogenic and natural fluxes, which in atmospheric inversions are sensitive to the prior geospatial distribution of emissions. For CH4 emissions, over the updated 2015–2019 period, which covers a sufficiently robust number of overlapping estimates, and most importantly the NGHGIs, the anthropogenic BU approaches are directly comparable, accounting for mean emissions of 20.5 Tg CH4 yr−1 (EDGARv6.0, last year 2018) and 18.4 Tg CH4 yr−1 (GAINS, last year 2015), close to the NGHGI estimates of 17.5±2.1 Tg CH4 yr−1. TD inversion estimates give higher emission estimates, as they also detect natural emissions. Over the same period, high-resolution regional TD inversions report a mean emission of 34 Tg CH4 yr−1. Coarser-resolution global-scale TD inversions result in emission estimates of 23 and 24 Tg CH4 yr−1 inferred from GOSAT and surface (SURF) network atmospheric measurements, respectively. The magnitude of natural peatland and mineral soil emissions from the JSBACH–HIMMELI model, natural rivers, lake and reservoir emissions, geological sources, and biomass burning together could account for the gap between NGHGI and inversions and account for 8 Tg CH4 yr−1. For N2O emissions, over the 2015–2019 period, both BU products (EDGARv6.0 and GAINS) report a mean value of anthropogenic emissions of 0.9 Tg N2O yr−1, close to the NGHGI data (0.8±55 % Tg N2O yr−1). Over the same period, the mean of TD global and regional inversions was 1.4 Tg N2O yr−1 (excluding TOMCAT, which reported no data). The TD and BU comparison method defined in this study can be operationalized for future annual updates for the calculation of CH4 and N2O budgets at the national and EU27 + UK scales. Future comparability will be enhanced with further steps involving analysis at finer temporal resolutions and estimation of emissions over intra-annual timescales, which is of great importance for CH4 and N2O, and may help identify sector contributions to divergence between prior and posterior estimates at the annual and/or inter-annual scale. Even if currently comparison between CH4 and N2O inversion estimates and NGHGIs is highly uncertain because of the large spread in the inversion results, TD inversions inferred from atmospheric observations represent the most independent data against which inventory totals can be compared. With anticipated improvements in atmospheric modeling and observations, as well as modeling of natural fluxes, TD inversions may arguably emerge as the most powerful tool for verifying emission inventories for CH4, N2O and other GHGs. The referenced datasets related to figures are visualized at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7553800 (Petrescu et al., 2023).

International audience; Changes in winter and spring temperatures have been widely used to explain the diverse responses of spring phenology to climate change. However, few studies have quantified their respective effects. Using 386,320 in situ observations of leaf unfolding date (LUD) of six tree species in Europe, we show that accelerated spring thermal accumulation and changes in winter chilling explain, on average, 61% and 39%, respectively, of the advancement in LUD for the period 1951–2019. We find that winter warming may not have delayed bud dormancy release, but rather it has increased the thermal requirement in reaching leaf unfolding. This increase in thermal requirement and the decreased efficiency of spring warming for thermal accumulation partly explain the weakening response of leaf unfolding to warming. Our study stresses the need to better assess the antagonistic and heterogeneous effects of winter and spring warming on leaf phenology, which is key to projecting future vegetation–climate feedbacks.

Leaching of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) from soils to the river network is an important component of the land carbon (C) budget. At regional to global scales, its significance has been estimated through simple mass budgets, often using multi-year averages of observed fluvial DOC fluxes as proxy of DOC leaching due to the limited availability of observations of the leaching flux itself. This procedure leads to a systematic underestimation of the leaching flux because of the reactivity of DOC during fluvial transport. Moreover, this procedure does not allow to reveal spatio-temporal variability in DOC leaching from soils, which is needed to better understand the drivers of DOC leaching and its impact on the local soil C budget. In this study, we use the land surface model ORCHILEAK to simulate the terrestrial C budget including leaching of DOC from the soil and its subsequent reactive transport through the river network of Europe. The model performance is not only evaluated against the sparse observations of DOC leaching, but also against the more abundant observations of fluxes and reactivity of DOC in rivers, providing further evidence that our simulated DOC leaching fluxes are realistic. The model is then used to simulate the spatio-temporal patterns of DOC leaching across Europe over the period 1972 to 2012, quantifying both the environmental drivers of these patterns as well as the impact of DOC leaching on the land C budget. Over the simulation period, we find that on average 14.3 TgC yr−1 of DOC is leached from land to European rivers, which is only about 0.6 % of the terrestrial net primary production, a fraction about one order of magnitude lower than reported for tropical river networks. Of the DOC leaching, on average 12.3 TgC yr−1 is exported to the coast via the river network, the rest being respired in transit. DOC leaching presents a large seasonal variability, with a maximum occurring in winter and a minimum in summer, except for the Northern most part of Europe where the maximum occurs in spring due to the snow melt. DOC leaching rate is generally lower in warm and dry regions, and higher in cold and wet regions of Europe. Furthermore, runoff, and the ratio between runoff from shallower flow paths vs. deep drainage and groundwater flow, is the main driver of the spatial variation of DOC leaching. Temperature, as a major control of DOC production and decomposition rates in the soils, plays only a secondary role.

Resolving regional carbon budgets is critical for informing land-based mitigation policy. For nine regions covering nearly the whole globe, we collected inventory estimates of carbon-stock changes complemented by satellite estimates of biomass changes where inventory data are missing. The net land–atmospheric carbon exchange (NEE) was calculated by taking the sum of the carbon-stock change and lateral carbon fluxes from crop and wood trade, and riverine-carbon export to the ocean. Summing up NEE from all regions, we obtained a global ‘bottom-up’ NEE for net land anthropogenic CO2 uptake of –2.2 ± 0.6 PgC yr−1 consistent with the independent top-down NEE from the global atmospheric carbon budget during 2000–09. This estimate is so far the most comprehensive global bottom-up carbon budget accounting, which set up an important milestone for global carbon-cycle studies. By decomposing NEE into component fluxes, we found that global soil heterotrophic respiration amounts to a source of CO2 of 39 PgC yr−1 with an interquartile of 33–46 PgC yr−1—a much smaller portion of net primary productivity than previously reported., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

International audience; We synthesized N2O emissions over North America using 17 bottom-up (BU) estimates from 1980–2016 and five top-down (TD) estimates from 1998 to 2016. The BU-based total emission shows a slight increase owing to U.S. agriculture, while no consistent trend is shown in TD estimates. During 2007–2016, North American N2O emissions are estimated at 1.7 (1.0–3.0) Tg N yr−1 (BU) and 1.3 (0.9–1.5) Tg N yr−1 (TD). Anthropogenic emissions were twice as large as natural fluxes from soil and water. Direct agricultural and industrial activities accounted for 68% of total anthropogenic emissions, 71% of which was contributed by the U.S. Our estimates of U.S. agricultural emissions are comparable to the EPA greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory, which includes estimates from IPCC tier 1 (emission factor) and tier 3 (process-based modeling) approaches. Conversely, our estimated agricultural emissions for Canada and Mexico are twice as large as the respective national GHG inventories.Nitrous oxide (N2O) is the third most important greenhouse gase (GHG) after CO2 and CH4 causing global warming. Among world regions, North America (defined herein as U.S., Canada, and Mexico) is the second largest source of N2O emissions globally, and previous source estimates for this region vary widely. This study aims to provide a comprehensive N2O assessment over North America including all available estimates based on a number of approaches. We report total emissions, and emissions from four anthropogenic source sectors, over the past four decades. Agriculture and industry are two major N2O sources in North America. Our results show a minor increase in the total N2O emission due to agricultural trends in the U.S. Our bottom-up estimate of U.S. agricultural N2O emissions are close to those in the EPA national GHG inventory that includes both empirical and model results. The high consistency suggests the need to take process-based modeling results into account for future national GHG inventories.

The implications of climate change and other human perturbations on the oceanic carbon cycle are still associated with large uncertainties. Global-scale modelling studies are essential to investigate anthropogenic perturbations of oceanic carbon fluxes but, until now, they have not considered the impacts of temporal changes in riverine and atmospheric inputs of P and N on the marine net biological productivity (NPP) and air–sea CO2 exchange (FCO2). To address this, we perform a series of simulations using an enhanced version of the global ocean biogeochemistry model HAMOCC to isolate effects arising from (1) increasing atmospheric CO2 levels, (2) a changing physical climate and (3) alterations in inputs of terrigenous P and N on marine carbon cycling over the 1905–2010 period. Our simulations reveal that our first-order approximation of increased terrigenous nutrient inputs causes an enhancement of 2.15 Pg C year−1 of the global marine NPP, a relative increase of +5% over the simulation period. This increase completely compensates the simulated NPP decrease as a result of increased upper ocean stratification of −3% in relative terms. The coastal ocean undergoes a global relative increase of 14% in NPP arising largely from increased riverine inputs, with regional increases exceeding 100%, for instance on the shelves of the Bay of Bengal. The imprint of enhanced terrigenous nutrient inputs is also simulated further offshore, inducing a 1.75 Pg C year−1 (+4%) enhancement of the NPP in the open ocean. This finding implies that the perturbation of carbon fluxes through coastal eutrophication may extend further offshore than that was previously assumed. While increased nutrient inputs are the largest driver of change for the CO2 uptake at the regional scale and enhance the global coastal ocean CO2 uptake by 0.02 Pg C year−1, they only marginally affect the FCO2 of the open ocean over our study's timeline., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Reliable quantification of the sources and sinks of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), including that of their trends and uncertainties, is essential to monitoring the progress in mitigating anthropogenic emissions under the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. This study provides a consolidated synthesis of estimates for all anthropogenic and natural sources and sinks of CO 2 for the European Union and UK (EU27 + UK), derived from a combination of state-of-the-art bottom-up (BU) and top-down (TD) data sources and models. Given the wide scope of the work and the variety of datasets involved, this study focuses on identifying essential questions which need to be answered to properly understand the differences between various datasets, in particular with regards to the less-well-characterized fluxes from managed ecosystems. The work integrates recent emission inventory data, process-based ecosystem model results, data-driven sector model results and inverse modeling estimates over the period 1990–2018. BU and TD products are compared with European national greenhouse gas inventories (NGHGIs) reported under the UNFCCC in 2019, aiming to assess and understand the differences between approaches. For the uncertainties in NGHGIs, we used the standard deviation obtained by varying parameters of inventory calculations, reported by the member states following the IPCC Guidelines. Variation in estimates produced with other methods, like atmospheric inversion models (TD) or spatially disaggregated inventory datasets (BU), arises from diverse sources including within-model uncertainty related to parameterization as well as structural differences between models. In comparing NGHGIs with other approaches, a key source of uncertainty is that related to different system boundaries and emission categories (CO 2 fossil) and the use of different land use definitions for reporting emissions from land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) activities (CO 2 land). At the EU27 + UK level, the NGHGI (2019) fossil CO 2 emissions (including cement production) account for 2624 Tg CO 2 in 2014 while all the other seven bottom-up sources are consistent with the NGHGIs and report a mean of 2588 ( ± 463 Tg CO 2 ). The inversion reports 2700 Tg CO 2 ( ± 480 Tg CO 2 ), which is well in line with the national inventories. Over 2011–2015, the CO 2 land sources and sinks from NGHGI estimates report −90 Tg C yr −1 ± 30 Tg C yr −1 while all other BU approaches report a mean sink of −98 Tg C yr −1 ( ± 362 Tg of C from dynamic global vegetation models only). For the TD model ensemble results, we observe a much larger spread for regional inversions (i.e., mean of 253 Tg C yr −1 ± 400 Tg C yr −1 ). This concludes that (a) current independent approaches are consistent with NGHGIs and (b) their uncertainty is too large to allow a verification because of model differences and probably also because of the definition of “CO 2 flux” obtained from different approaches. The referenced datasets related to figures are visualized at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4626578 (Petrescu et al., 2020a).

Reliable quantification of the sources and sinks of greenhouse gases, together with trends and uncertainties, is essential to monitoring the progress in mitigating anthropogenic emissions under the Paris Agreement. This study provides a consolidated synthesis of CH4 and N2O emissions with consistently derived state-of-the-art bottom-up (BU) and top-down (TD) data sources for the European Union and UK (EU27 + UK). We integrate recent emission inventory data, ecosystem process-based model results and inverse modeling estimates over the period 1990-2017. BU and TD products are compared with European national greenhouse gas inventories (NGHGIs) reported to the UN climate convention UNFCCC secretariat in 2019. For uncertainties, we used for NGHGIs the standard deviation obtained by varying parameters of inventory calculations, reported by the member states (MSs) following the recommendations of the IPCC Guidelines. For atmospheric inversion models (TD) or other inventory datasets (BU), we defined uncertainties from the spread between different model estimates or model-specific uncertainties when reported. In comparing NGHGIs with other approaches, a key source of bias is the activities included, e.g. anthropogenic versus anthropogenic plus natural fluxes. In inversions, the separation between anthropogenic and natural emissions is sensitive to the geospatial prior distribution of emissions. Over the 2011-2015 period, which is the common denominator of data availability between all sources, the anthropogenic BU approaches are directly comparable, reporting mean emissions of 20.8 Tg CH4 yr-1 (EDGAR v5.0) and 19.0 Tg CH4 yr-1 (GAINS), consistent with the NGHGI estimates of 18.9 ± 1.7 Tg CH4 yr-1. The estimates of TD total inversions give higher emission estimates, as they also include natural emissions. Over the same period regional TD inversions with higher-resolution atmospheric transport models give a mean emission of 28.8 Tg CH4 yr-1. Coarser-resolution global TD inversions are consistent with regional TD inversions, for global inversions with GOSAT satellite data (23.3 Tg CH4 yr-1) and surface network (24.4 Tg CH4 yr-1). The magnitude of natural peatland emissions from the JSBACH-HIMMELI model, natural rivers and lakes emissions, and geological sources together account for the gap between NGHGIs and inversions and account for 5.2 Tg CH4 yr-1. For N2O emissions, over the 2011-2015 period, both BU approaches (EDGAR v5.0 and GAINS) give a mean value of anthropogenic emissions of 0.8 and 0.9 Tg N2O yr-1, respectively, agreeing with the NGHGI data (0.9 ± 0.6 Tg N2O yr-1). Over the same period, the average of the three total TD global and regional inversions was 1.3 ± 0.4 and 1.3 ± 0.1 Tg N2O yr-1, respectively. The TD and BU comparison method defined in this study can be operationalized for future yearly updates for the calculation of CH4 and N2O budgets both at the EU+UK scale and at the national scale. The referenced datasets related to figures are visualized at. (Petrescu et al. 2020b)., SCOPUS: re.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Reliable quantification of the sources and sinks of greenhouse gases, together with trends and uncertainties, is essential to monitoring the progress in mitigating anthropogenic emissions under the Paris Agreement. This study provides a consolidated synthesis of CH4 and N2O emissions with consistently derived state-of-the-art bottom-up (BU) and top-down (TD) data sources for the European Union and UK (EU27+UK). We integrate recent emission inventory data, ecosystem process-based model results, and inverse modelling estimates over the period 1990–2018. BU and TD products are compared with European National GHG Inventories (NGHGI) reported to the UN climate convention secretariat UNFCCC in 2019. For uncertainties, we used for NGHGI the standard deviation obtained by varying parameters of inventory calculations, reported by the Member States following the IPCC guidelines recommendations. For atmospheric inversion models (TD) or other inventory datasets (BU), we defined uncertainties from the spread between different model estimates or model specific uncertainties when reported. In comparing NGHGI with other approaches, a key source of bias is the activities included, e.g. anthropogenic versus anthropogenic plus natural fluxes. In inversions, the separation between anthropogenic and natural emissions is sensitive to the geospatial prior distribution of emissions. Over the 2011–2015 period, which is the common denominator of data availability between all sources, the anthropogenic BU approaches are directly comparable, reporting mean emissions of 20.8 Tg CH4 yr−1 (EDGAR v5.0) and 19.0 Tg CH4 yr−1 (GAINS), consistent with the NGHGI estimates of 18.9 ± 1.7 Tg CH4 yr−1. TD total inversions estimates give higher emission estimates, as they also include natural emissions. Over the same period regional TD inversions with higher resolution atmospheric transport models give a mean emission of 28.8 Tg CH4 yr−1. Coarser resolution global TD inversions are consistent with regional TD inversions, for global inversions with GOSAT satellite data (23.3 Tg CH4yr−1) and surface network (24.4 Tg CH4 yr−1). The magnitude of natural peatland emissions from the JSBACH-HIMMELI model, natural rivers and lakes emissions and geological sources together account for the gap between NGHGI and inversions and account for 5.2 Tg CH4 yr−1. For N2O emissions, over the 2011–2015 period, both BU approaches (EDGAR v5.0 and GAINS) give a mean value of anthropogenic emissions of 0.8 and 0.9 Tg N2O yr−1 respectively, agreeing with the NGHGI data (0.9 ± 0.6 Tg N2O yr−1). Over the same period, the average of the three total TD global and regional inversions was 1.3 ± 0.4 and 1.3 ± 0.1 Tg N2O yr−1 respectively, compared to 0.9 Tg N2O yr−1 from the BU data. The TU and BU comparison method defined in this study can be operationalized for future yearly updates for the calculation of CH4 and N2O budgets both at EU+UK scale and at national scale. The referenced datasets related to figures are visualized at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4288969 (Petrescu et al., 2020).

Terrestrial ecosystems absorb, at present, about one-fourth of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, which is accumulating in the carbon (C) stocks of vegetation and soils. Land-surface models are used to project the 21st century evolution of this CO2 sink, which mitigates the expected increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration and, thus, climate change. However, classical land-surface models neglect that a fraction of the anthropogenic C absorbed by terrestrial ecosystems is not accumulating on land but is instead exported through the river network. Using the Amazon basin as a case study and a novel land-surface model that represents C exports through rivers, we prove that classical land-surface models such as those used for the Assessment Reports of the IPCC underestimate the CO2 uptake by terrestrial ecosystems and overestimate the amount of anthropogenic C sequestered within vegetation and soils. We provide reasons justifying that similar biases are to be expected at global scale., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

In this second part of a two-part study, we performed a simulation of the carbon and water budget of the Lena catchment with the land surface model ORCHIDEE MICT-LEAK, enabled to simulate dissolved organic carbon (DOC) production in soils and its transport and fate in high-latitude inland waters. The model results are evaluated for their ability to reproduce the fluxes of DOC and carbon dioxide (CO2) along the soil-inland-water continuum and the exchange of CO2 with the atmosphere, including the evasion outgassing of CO2 from inland waters. We present simulation results over the years 1901-2007 and show that the model is able to broadly reproduce observed state variables and their emergent properties across a range of interacting physical and biogeochemical processes. These include (1) net primary production (NPP), respiration and riverine hydrologic amplitude, seasonality, and inter-annual variation; (2) DOC concentrations, bulk annual flow, and their volumetric attribution at the sub-catchment level; (3) high headwater versus downstream CO2 evasion, an emergent phenomenon consistent with observations over a spectrum of high-latitude observational studies. These quantities obey emergent relationships with environmental variables like air temperature and topographic slope that have been described in the literature. This gives us confidence in reporting the following additional findings: of the ĝ'1/434TgCyr-1 left over as input to soil matter after NPP is diminished by heterotrophic respiration, 7TgCyr-1 is leached and transported into the aquatic system. Of this, over half (3.6TgCyr-1) is evaded from the inland water surface back into the atmosphere and the remainder (3.4TgCyr-1) flushed out into the Arctic Ocean, mirroring empirically derived studies. These riverine DOC exports represent ĝ'1/41.5% of NPP. DOC exported from the floodplains is dominantly sourced from recent more "labile" terrestrial production in contrast to DOC leached from the rest of the watershed with runoff and drainage, which is mostly sourced from recalcitrant soil and litter. All else equal, both historical climate change (a spring-summer warming of 1.8ĝ' C over the catchment) and rising atmospheric CO2 (+85.6ppm) are diagnosed from factorial simulations to contribute similar significant increases in DOC transport via primary production, although this similarity may not hold in the future., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

In contrast to the open ocean, the sources and sinks for atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) in the coastal seas are poorly constrained and understood. Here we address this knowledge gap by analyzing the spatial and temporal variability of the coastal air-sea flux of CO2 (FCO2) using a recent high-resolution (0.25°) monthly climatology for coastal sea surface partial pressure in CO2 (pCO2). Coastal regions are characterized by CO2 sinks at temperate and high latitudes and by CO2 sources at low latitude and in the tropics, with annual mean CO2 flux densities comparable in magnitude and pattern to those of the adjacent open ocean with the exception of river-dominated systems. The seasonal variations in FCO2 are large, often exceeding 2 mol C m−2 year−1, a magnitude similar to the variations exhibited across latitudes. The majority of these seasonal variations stems from the air-sea pCO2 difference, although changes in wind speed and sea ice cover can also be significant regionally. Globally integrated, the coastal seas act currently as a CO2 sink of −0.20 ± 0.02 Pg C year−1, with a more intense uptake occurring in summer because of the disproportionate influence of high-latitude shelves in the Northern Hemisphere. Combined with estimates of the carbon sinks in the open ocean and the Arctic, this gives for the global ocean, averaged over the 1998 to 2015 period an annual net CO2 uptake of −1.7 ± 0.3 Pg C year−1., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

We present the first version of OMEN-SED (Organic Matter ENabled SEDiment model), a new, onedimensional analytical early diagenetic model resolving organic matter cycling and the associated biogeochemical dynamics in marine sediments designed to be coupled to Earth system models. OMEN-SED explicitly describes organic matter (OM) cycling and the associated dynamics of the most important terminal electron acceptors (i.e. O2, NO3, SO4) and methane (CH4), related reduced substances (NH4, H2S), macronutrients (PO4) and associated pore water quantities (ALK, DIC). Its reaction network accounts for the most important primary and secondary redox reactions, equilibrium reactions, mineral dissolution and precipitation, as well as adsorption and desorption processes associated with OM dynamics that affect the dissolved and solid species explicitly resolved in the model. To represent a redox-dependent sedimentary P cycle we also include a representation of the formation and burial of Fe-bound P and authigenic Ca-P minerals. Thus, OMEN-SED is able to capture the main features of diagenetic dynamics in marine sediments and therefore offers similar predictive abilities as a complex, numerical diagenetic model. Yet, its computational efficiency allows for its coupling to global Earth system models and therefore the investigation of coupled global biogeochemical dynamics over a wide range of climate-relevant timescales. This paper provides a detailed description of the new sediment model, an extensive sensitivity analysis and an evaluation of OMEN-SED's performance through comprehensive comparisons with observations and results from a more complex numerical model. We find that solid-phase and dissolved pore water profiles for different ocean depths are reproduced with good accuracy and simulated terminal electron acceptor fluxes fall well within the range of globally observed fluxes. Finally, we illustrate its application in an Earth system model framework by coupling OMEN-SED to the Earth system model cGENIE and tune the OM degradation rate constants to optimise the fit of simulated benthic OM contents to global observations. We find that the simulated sediment characteristics of the coupled model framework, such as OM degradation rates, oxygen penetration depths and sediment-water interface fluxes, are generally in good agreement with observations and in line with what one would expect on a global scale. Coupled to an Earth system model, OMENSED is thus a powerful tool that will not only help elucidate the role of benthic-pelagic exchange processes in the evolution and the termination of a wide range of climate events, but will also allow for a direct comparison of model output with the sedimentary record - the most important climate archive on Earth., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

The river‐floodplain network plays an important role in the carbon (C) cycle of the Amazon basin, as it transports and processes a significant fraction of the C fixed by terrestrial vegetation, most of which evades as CO2 from rivers and floodplains back to the atmosphere. There is empirical evidence that exceptionally dry or wet years have an impact on the net C balance in the Amazon. While seasonal and interannual variations in hydrology have a direct impact on the amounts of C transferred through the river‐floodplain system, it is not known how far the variation of these fluxes affects the overall Amazon C balance. Here, we introduce a new wetland forcing file for the ORCHILEAK model, which improves the representation of floodplain dynamics and allows us to closely reproduce data‐driven estimates of net C exports through the river–floodplain network. Based on this new wetland forcing and two climate forcing datasets, we show that across the Amazon, the percentage of net primary productivity (NPP) lost to the river–floodplain system is highly variable at the interannual timescale, and wet years fuel aquatic CO2 evasion. However, at the same time overall net ecosystem productivity (NEP) and C sequestration are highest during wet years, partly due to reduced decomposition rates in water‐logged floodplain soils. It is years with the lowest discharge and floodplain inundation, often associated with El Nino events, that have the lowest NEP and the highest total (terrestrial plus aquatic) CO2 emissions back to atmosphere. Furthermore, we find that aquatic C fluxes display greater variation than terrestrial C fluxes, and that this variation significantly dampens the interannual variability in NEP of the Amazon basin. These results call for a more integrative view of the C fluxes through the vegetation‐soil‐river‐floodplain continuum, which directly places aquatic C fluxes into the overall C budget of the Amazon basin.

Natural lakes and reservoirs are important, yet not well constrained sources of greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere. In particular for N2O emissions, a huge variability is observed in the few, observation‐driven flux estimates that have been published so far. Recently, a process‐based, spatially explicit model has been used to estimate global N2O emissions from more than 6,000 reservoirs based on nitrogen (N) and phosphorous inflows and water residence time. Here, we extend the model to a dataset of 1.4 million standing water bodies comprising natural lakes and reservoirs. For validation, we normalized the simulated N2O emissions by the surface area of each water body and compared them against regional averages of N2O emission rates taken from the literature or estimated based on observed N2O concentrations. We estimate that natural lakes and reservoirs together emit 4.5±2.9 Gmol N2O‐N yr‐1 globally. Our global scale estimate falls in the far lower end of existing, observation‐driven estimates. Natural lakes contribute only about half of this flux, although they contribute 91% of the total surface area of standing water bodies. Hence, the mean N2O emission rates per surface area are substantially lower for natural lakes than for reservoirs with 0.8±0.5 mmol N m‐2yr‐1 vs. 9.6±6.0 mmol N m‐2yr‐1, respectively. This finding can be explained by on average lower external N inputs to natural lakes. We conclude that upscaling based estimates, which do not distinguish natural lakes from reservoirs, are prone to important biases. Funding agencies: European UnionEuropean Union (EU) [776810]; Swedish Research Council VRSwedish Research Council; Swedish Research Council FORMASSwedish Research CouncilSwedish Research Council Formas; European Research Council (ERC Grant)European Research Council (ERC) Accepted version on author's personal web page https://liu.se/dfsmedia/dd35e243dfb7406993c1815aaf88a675/35054-source/options/download/natural-lakes

A transient, vertically resolved, analytical model for the early diagenesis of silica has been developed to quantify the importance of benthic-pelagic coupling in estuarine biogeochemical silica cycling. A sensitivity analysis based on Monte-Carlo simulations is carried out to assess the intensity and timing of benthic diffusive fluxes in response to a pelagic diatom bloom. The diffusive flux dynamics are analyzed over a realistic range of dissolution rate constants (max kSi ε [6×10−3–3.6×10−1 d−1]), diffusion coefficients of dissolved silica (DSi ε [35×10−6–35×10−5 m2 d−1]) and duration of dissolved silica depletion in the water column (wPDSI ε [1–3 month]). Results show that the diffusive silica flux responds with a time delay of 20 to 120 days to the biogenic silica deposition pulse. For high max kSi, simulated time lags are shortest and completely determined by the dissolution kinetics. However, decreasing max kSi leads to a slower benthic flux response. In addition, the variability increases due to the increasing importance of transport processes. The sensitivity study also allows us to constrain the uncertainties of a system-scale simulation, where a large number of benthic compartments (>50 000) are coupled to a high-resolution (100×100 m) pelagic model of a macrotidal river and estuary (Western Scheldt, B/NL). The model is applied to a diatom bloom event recorded in 2003, characterized by pelagic silica depletion in August. Benthic processes are mainly modulated by the combined influence of local hydrodynamic conditions and pelagic primary production dynamics, and show therefore a high degree of spatial heterogeneity over short distances. Spatially integrated deposition fluxes and dissolution rates of biogenic silica are high throughout the growth period, with maxima of 1.3×105 mol d−1 (=8.0 mmol m2 d−1) and 7.8×104 mol d−1 (=4.8 mmol m2 d−1) in mid-August. The spatially integrated diffusive flux reaches a maximum of 1.5×104 mol d−1 at the end of a pelagic silica depletion period in September. However, the total amount of dissolved silica released from the estuarine sediments between June and December 2003 is small (2×106 mol) compared to the much higher riverine influx of dissolved silica (5.9×107 mol) and plays a minor role in the pelagic primary production dynamics.

Nitrous oxide (N2 O) emissions from inland waters remain a major source of uncertainty in global greenhouse gas budgets. N2 O emissions are typically estimated using emission factors (EFs), defined as the proportion of the terrestrial nitrogen (N) load to a water body that is emitted as N2 O to the atmosphere. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has proposed EFs of 0.25% and 0.75%, though studies have suggested that both these values are either too high or too low. In this work, we develop a mechanistic modeling approach to explicitly predict N2 O production and emissions via nitrification and denitrification in rivers, reservoirs and estuaries. In particular, we introduce a water residence time dependence, which kinetically limits the extent of denitrification and nitrification in water bodies. We revise existing spatially explicit estimates of N loads to inland waters to predict both lumped watershed and half-degree grid cell emissions and EFs worldwide, as well as the proportions of these emissions that originate from denitrification and nitrification. We estimate global inland water N2 O emissions of 10.6-19.8GmolNyear-1 (148-277GgNyear-1 ), with reservoirs producing most N2 O per unit area. Our results indicate that IPCC EFs are likely overestimated by up to an order of magnitude, and that achieving the magnitude of the IPCC's EFs is kinetically improbable in most river systems. Denitrification represents the major pathway of N2 O production in river systems, whereas nitrification dominates production in reservoirs and estuaries.

Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and their redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere is important to better understand the global carbon cycle, support the development of climate policies, and project future climate change. Here we describe data sets and a methodology to quantify all major components of the global carbon budget, including their uncertainties, based on the combination of a range of data, algorithms, statistics and model estimates and their interpretation by a broad scientific community. We discuss changes compared to previous estimates, consistency within and among components, alongside methodology and data limitations. CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel combustion and cement production (EFF) are based on energy statistics, while emissions from land-use change (ELUC), mainly deforestation, are based on combined evidence from land-cover change data, fire activity associated with deforestation, and models. The global atmospheric CO2 concentration is measured directly and its rate of growth (G ATM) is computed from the annual changes in concentration. The mean ocean CO2 sink (SOCEAN) is based on observations from the 1990s, while the annual anomalies and trends are estimated with ocean models. The variability in SOCEAN is evaluated for the first time in this budget with data products based on surveys of ocean CO2 measurements. The global residual terrestrial CO2 sink (SLAND) is estimated by the difference of the other terms of the global carbon budget and compared to results of independent dynamic global vegetation models forced by observed climate, CO2 and land cover change (some including nitrogen-carbon interactions). All uncertainties are reported as ±1σ ,reflecting the current capacity to characterise the annual estimates of each component of the global carbon budget. For the last decade available (2003-2012), EFF was 8.6±0.4 GtC yr-1, ELUC 0.9±0.5 GtC yr-1, GATM 4.3±0.1 GtC yr-1, SOCEAN 2.5±0.5 GtC yr -1, and SLAND 2.8±0.8 GtC yr-1. For year 2012 alone, EFF grew to 9.7±0.5 GtC yr-1, 2.2% above 2011, reflecting a continued growing trend in these emissions, G ATM was 5.1±0.2 GtC yr-1, SOCEAN was 2.9±0.5 GtC yr-1, and assuming an ELUC of 1.0±0.5 GtC yr-1 (based on the 2001-2010 average), S LAND was 2.7±0.9 GtC yr-1. GATM was high in 2012 compared to the 2003-2012 average, almost entirely reflecting the high EFF. The global atmospheric CO2 concentration reached 392.52±0.10 ppm averaged over 2012. We estimate that EFF will increase by 2.1% (1.1- 3.1 %) to 9.9±0.5 GtC in 2013, 61% above emissions in 1990, based on projections of world gross domestic product and recent changes in the carbon intensity of the economy.With this projection, cumulative emissions ofCO2 will reach about 535±55 GtC for 1870-2013, about 70% from EFF (390±20 GtC) and 30% from ELUC (145±50 GtC). This paper also documents any changes in the methods and data sets used in this new carbon budget from previous budgets (Le Quéré et al. 2013). All observations presented here can be downloaded from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (doi:10.3334/CDIAC/GCP-2013-V2.3). © 2014 Author(s) CC Attribution 3.0 License., 0, SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

The carbon cycle of the coastal ocean is a dynamic component of the global carbon budget. But the diverse sources and sinks of carbon and their complex interactions in these waters remain poorly understood. Here we discuss the sources, exchanges and fates of carbon in the coastal ocean and how anthropogenic activities have altered the carbon cycle. Recent evidence suggests that the coastal ocean may have become a net sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide during post-industrial times. Continued human pressures in coastal zones will probably have an important impact on the future evolution of the coastal ocean's carbon budget.

International audience; A realistic model of multi-agent planning must allow us to formalize notions which are absent in classical planning, such as communication and knowledge.We investigate multi-agent planning based on a simple logic of knowledge that is grounded on the visibility of propositional variables. Using such a formal logic allows us to prove the existence of a plan given the description of the individual actions. We present an encoding of multi-agent planning problems expressed in this logic into the classical planning language PDDL. The solvability of a planning task is reduced to a model checking problem in a dynamic extension of our logic, proving its complexity. Feeding the resulting problem into a PDDL planner provides a provably correct plan for the original multi-agent planning problem. We apply our method on several examples such as the gossip problem.

This study applies the Carbon-Generic Estuary Model (C-GEM) modeling platform to simulate the estuarine biogeochemical dynamics - in particular the air-water CO2 exchange - in three idealized tidal estuaries characterized by increasing riverine influence, from a so-called "marine estuary" to a "riverine estuary". An intermediate case called "mixed estuary" is also considered. C-GEM uses a generic biogeochemical reaction network and a unique set of model parameters extracted from a comprehensive literature survey to perform steady-state simulations representing average conditions for temperate estuaries worldwide. Climate and boundary conditions are extracted from published global databases (e.g. World Ocean Atlas, GLORICH) and catchment model outputs (GlobalNEWS2). The whole-system biogeochemical indicators net ecosystem metabolism (NEM), C and N filtering capacities (FCTC and FCTN, respectively) and CO2 gas exchanges (FCO2) are calculated across the three idealized systems and are related to their main hydrodynamic and transport characteristics. A sensitivity analysis, which propagates the parameter uncertainties, is also carried out, followed by projections of changes in the biogeochemical indicators for the year 2050. Results show that the average C filtering capacities for baseline conditions are 40, 30 and 22 % for the marine, mixed and riverine estuary, respectively, while N filtering capacities, calculated in a similar fashion, range from 22 % for the marine estuary to 18 and 15 % for the mixed and the riverine estuaries. Sensitivity analysis performed by varying the rate constants for aerobic degradation, denitrification and nitrification over the range of values reported in the literature significantly widens these ranges for both C and N. Simulations for the year 2050 suggest that all estuaries will remain largely heterotrophic, although a slight improvement of the estuarine trophic status is predicted. In addition, our results suggest that, while the riverine and mixed systems will only marginally be affected by an increase in atmospheric pCO2, the marine estuary is likely to become a significant CO2 sink in its downstream section. In the decades to come, such a change in behavior might strengthen the overall CO2 sink of the estuary-coastal ocean continuum., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Accurate assessment of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and their redistribution among the atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial biosphere is important to better understand the global carbon cycle, support the development of climate policies, and project future climate change. Here we describe data sets and a methodology to quantify all major components of the global carbon budget, including their uncertainties, based on the combination of a range of data, algorithms, statistics, and model estimates and their interpretation by a broad scientific community. We discuss changes compared to previous estimates, consistency within and among components, alongside methodology and data limitations. CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement production (EFF) are based on energy statistics and cement production data, respectively, while emissions from land-use change (ELUC), mainly deforestation, are based on combined evidence from land-cover-change data, fire activity associated with deforestation, and models. The global atmospheric CO2 concentration is measured directly and its rate of growth (GATM) is computed from the annual changes in concentration. The mean ocean CO2 sink (SOCEAN) is based on observations from the 1990s, while the annual anomalies and trends are estimated with ocean models. The variability in SOCEAN is evaluated with data products based on surveys of ocean CO2 measurements. The global residual terrestrial CO2 sink (SLAND) is estimated by the difference of the other terms of the global carbon budget and compared to results of independent dynamic global vegetation models forced by observed climate, CO2, and land-cover-change (some including nitrogen-carbon interactions). We compare the mean land and ocean fluxes and their variability to estimates from three atmospheric inverse methods for three broad latitude bands. All uncertainties are reported as ±1σ, reflecting the current capacity to characterise the annual estimates of each component of the global carbon budget. For the last decade available (2004-2013) EFF was 8.9 ± 0.4 GtC yr-1, ELUC 0.9 ± 0.5 GtC yr-1, GATM 4.3 ± 0.1 GtC yr-1, SOCEAN 2.6 ± 0.5 GtC yr-1, and SLAND 2.9 ± 0.8 GtC yr-1. For year 2013 alone, EFF grew to 9.9 ± 0.5 GtC yr-1, 2.3% above 2012, continuing the growth trend in these emissions, ELUC was 0.9 ± 0.5 GtC yr-1, GATM was 5.4 ± 0.2 GtC yr-1, SOCEAN was 2.9 ± 0.5 GtC yr-1, and SLAND was 2.5 ± 0.9 GtC yr-1. GATM was high in 2013, reflecting a steady increase in EFF and smaller and opposite changes between SOCEAN and SLAND compared to the past decade (2004-2013). The global atmospheric CO2 concentration reached 395.31 ± 0.10 ppm averaged over 2013. We estimate that EFF will increase by 2.5% (1.3-3.5%) to 10.1 ± 0.6 GtC in 2014 (37.0 ± 2.2 GtCO2 yr-1), 65% above emissions in 1990, based on projections of world gross domestic product and recent changes in the carbon intensity of the global economy. From this projection of EFF and assumed constant ELUC for 2014, cumulative emissions of CO2 will reach about 545 ± 55 GtC (2000 ± 200 GtCO2) for 1870-2014, about 75% from EFF and 25% from ELUC. This paper documents changes in the methods and data sets used in this new carbon budget compared with previous publications of this living data set (Le Quéré et al. 2013, 2014). All observations presented here can be downloaded from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (doi:10.3334/CDIAC/GCP-2014)., 0, SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

International audience; A realistic model of multiagent planning must allow us to model notions which are absent in classical planning such as communication and knowledge. We investigate multiagent planning based on a simple logic of action and knowledge that is based on the visibility of propositional variables. Using such a formal logic allows us to deduce the validity of a plan from the validity of the individual actions which compose it. We present a coding of multiagent planning problems expressed in this logic into the classical planning language PDDL. Feeding the resulting problem into a PDDL planner provides a provably correct plan for the original multiagent planning problem. We use the gossip problem as a running example.

This contribution reviews the role of the terrestrial-aquatic interface in the global carbon cycle. We highlight that carbon leakage through this interface has profound ramifications for the terrestrial carbon balance and for the anthropogenic CO2 budget. Our budget analysis identifies the need for an integrated process-based quantitative understanding of the terrestrial-aquatic interface that includes its response to anthropogenic perturbations. Complementary observational and modeling efforts in this direction are presented.

Estimating the amount of methane in the seafloor globally as well as the flux of methane from sediments toward the ocean–atmosphere system are important considerations in both geological and climate sciences. Nevertheless, global estimates of methane inventories and rates of methane production and consumption through anaerobic oxidation in marine sediments are very poorly constrained. Tools for regionally assessing methane formation and consumption rates would greatly increase our understanding of the spatial heterogeneity of the methane cycle as well as help constrain the global methane budget. In this article, an algorithm for calculating methane consumption rates in the inner shelf is applied to the gas-rich sediments of the Belt Seas and The Sound (North Sea–Baltic Sea transition). It is based on the depth of free gas determined by hydroacoustic techniques and the local methane solubility concentration. Due to the continuous nature of shipboard hydroacoustic measurements, this algorithm captures spatial heterogeneities in methane fluxes better than geochemical analyses of point sources such as observational/sampling stations. The sensibility of the algorithm with respect to the resolution of the free gas depth measurements (2 m vs. 50 cm) is proven of minor importance (a discrepancy of –1) than previous estimates (4.6 Tmol year–1). These algorithms ultimately help improve regional estimates of anaerobic oxidation of methane rates.

Past characterizations of the land–ocean continuum were constructed either from a continental perspective through an analysis of watershed river basin properties (COSCATs: COastal Segmentation and related CATchments) or from an oceanic perspective, through a regionalization of the proximal and distal continental margins (LMEs: large marine ecosystems). Here, we present a global-scale coastal segmentation, composed of three consistent levels, that includes the whole aquatic continuum with its riverine, estuarine and shelf sea components. Our work delineates comprehensive ensembles by harmonizing previous segmentations and typologies in order to retain the most important physical characteristics of both the land and shelf areas. The proposed multi-scale segmentation results in a distribution of global exorheic watersheds, estuaries and continental shelf seas among 45 major zones (MARCATS: MARgins and CATchments Segmentation) and 149 sub-units (COSCATs). Geographic and hydrologic parameters such as the surface area, volume and freshwater residence time are calculated for each coastal unit as well as different hypsometric profiles. Our analysis provides detailed insights into the distributions of coastal and continental shelf areas and how they connect with incoming riverine fluxes. The segmentation is also used to re-evaluate the global estuarine CO2 flux at the air–water interface combining global and regional average emission rates derived from local studies.

Redox processes, including degradation of organic contaminants, are often controlled by microorganisms residing in natural porous media like soils or aquifers. These environments are characterized by heterogeneities at various scales which influence the transport of chemical species and the spatial distribution of microorganisms. As a result, the accessibility of the chemical species by the resident microbial populations may be limited, altering the efficiency of the biodegradation process. Hence, the biodegradation rate of contaminants at large scales does not only depend on the degradation capacity of the indigenous microbial population but also on the heterogeneities of the hosting media at smaller scales. It is thus important to establish a link between effective reaction rates and various structural features of porous media which can be directly observed or measured. This link is urgently needed because explicit resolution of heterogeneities within large-scale reactive transport models is still limited by the available computational capacities. The present study introduces a reactive transport modeling approach to determine the influence of pore-scale heterogeneities on biogeochemical processes in porous media. For this purpose, a pore network model, which simulates flow and advective-diffusive transport of chemical species in heterogeneous pore networks is developed and coupled to the Biogeochemical Reaction Network Simulator (BRNS). The resulting coupled model (PNBRNS) is able to simulate the reactive transport of solutes in heterogeneous pore assemblies. The PNBRNS model is applied for the simulation of a test case of bioavailability and effective biodegradation rate of a dissolved contaminant in different pore networks, built using a discrete set of geostatistically derived pore-size or biomass distributions. Results show that the heterogeneity of the pore-size distribution has a significant impact on bioavailability while the heterogeneity of the biomass distribution only leads to minor effects. The model also includes intra-pore bioavailability restrictions using diffusion-limited biodegradation kinetics. The results indicate that intra-pore limitations lead to extra constrains on the biodegradation of contaminants, even in the presence of larger-scale structural heterogeneities.

Arkona Basin (southwestern Baltic Sea) is a seasonally-hypoxic basin characterized by the presence of free methane gas in its youngest organic-rich muddy stratum. Through the use of reactive transport models, this study tracks the development of the methane geochemistry in Arkona Basin as this muddy sediment became deposited during the last 8 kyr. Four cores are modeled each pertaining to a unique geochemical scenario according to their respective contemporary geochemical profiles. Ultimately the thickness of the muddy sediment and the flux of particulate organic carbon are crucial in determining the advent of both methanogenesis and free methane gas, the timescales over which methanogenesis takes over as a dominant reaction pathway for organic matter degradation, and the timescales required for free methane gas to form. © 2012 Author(s)., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

A one‐dimensional reaction‐transport model is used to investigate the dynamics of methane gas in coastal sediments in response to intra‐annual variations in temperature and pressure. The model is applied to data from two shallow water sites in Eckernforde Bay (Germany) characterized by low and high rates of upward fluid advection. At both sites, organic matter is buried below the sulfate‐reducing zone to the methanogenic zone at sufficiently high rates to allow supersaturation of the pore water with dissolved methane and to form a free methane gas phase. The methane solubility concentration varies by similar magnitudes at both study sites in response to bottom water temperature changes and leads to pronounced peaks in the gas volume fraction in autumn when the methanic zone temperature is at a maximum. Yearly hydrostatic pressure variations have comparatively negligible effects on methane solubility. Field data suggest that no free gas escapes to the water column at any time of the year. Although the existence of gas migration cannot be substantiated by direct observation, a speculative mechanism for slow moving gas is proposed here. The model results reveal that free gas migrating upward into the undersaturated pore water will completely dissolve and subsequently be consumed above the free gas depth (FGD) by anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM). This microbially mediated process maintains methane undersaturation above the FGD. Although the complexities introduced by seasonal changes in temperature lead to different seasonal trends for the depth‐integrated AOM rates and the FGD, both sites adhere to previously developed prognostic indicators for methane fluxes based on the FGD.

This study presents a first attempt to quantify the biogeochemical transformations and fluxes of carbon and nutrients along the entire mixing zone of the shallow, tidally-dominated estuary–coastal zone continuum of the Scheldt (Belgium/The Netherlands). A fully transient, two-dimensional, nested-grid hydrodynamic model of the continuum is coupled to the biogeochemical MIRO model for the coastal zone and the CONTRASTE model for the estuary. Transient model simulations are performed with a high spatial (80–750 m) and temporal (30 min) resolution over a period of one year (January–December 1995). The high temporal resolution allows including the short-term variability triggered by the tides, the freshwater discharge and the wind stress. System scale simulations provide time series of nutrient transformations and fluxes along the entire estuary–coastal zone continuum, as well as highly resolved nutrient inventories for the estuarine and the coastal zone sub-domains. Simulation results reveal that the balance between highly variable estuarine nutrient inputs and physical constrains set by the unsteady residual transport field exert an important control on the magnitude and succession of phytoplankton blooms and the ecosystem structure in the coastal zone. In addition, they suggest that the poorly surveyed estuarine–coastal zone interface plays a central role in the continuum. In this dynamic area, marked spatial concentration gradients develop and episodically lead to a reversal of material fluxes from the coast into the estuary. During distinct episodes of the productive period, euryhaline coastal diatoms intrude far upstream into the saline estuary. This intrusion reduces the estuarine nutrient concentrations and export fluxes, thereby reinforcing the nutrient limitation in the coastal area. As a consequence, the estuarine filter does not operate independently from the processes in the coastal zone. The dynamic interplay between the two ecosystems and the intense process rates operating at their transition, therefore, strongly supports our continuum approach.

Recent developments in the quantitativemodeling of methane dynamics and anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM) in marine sediments are critically reviewed. The first part of the review begins with a comparison of alternative kinetic models for AOM. The roles of bioenergetic limitations, intermediate compounds and biomass growth are highlighted. Next, the key transport mechanisms in multi-phase sedimentary environments affecting AOM and methane fluxes are briefly treated, while attention is also given to additional controls on methane and sulfate turnover, including organic matter mineralization, sulfur cycling and methane phase transitions. In the second part of the review, the structure, forcing functions and parameterization of published models of AOM in sediments are analyzed. The six-orders-of-magnitude range in rate constants reported for the widely used bimolecular rate law for AOM emphasizes the limited transferability of this simple kinetic model and, hence, the need for more comprehensive descriptions of the AOM reaction system. The derivation and implementation of more complete reaction models, however, are limited by the availability of observational data. In this context, we attempt to rank the relative benefits of potential experimental measurements that should help to better constrain AOM models. The last part of the review presents a compilation of reported depth-integrated AOM rates (ΣAOM). These rates reveal the extreme variability of ΣAOM in marine sediments. The model results are further used to derive quantitative relationships between ΣAOM and the magnitude of externally impressed fluid flow, as well as between ΣAOM and the depth of the sulfate–methane transition zone (SMTZ). This review contributes to an improved understanding of the global significance of the AOM process, and helps identify outstanding questions and future directions in the modeling of methane cycling and AOM in marine sediments.

The description of reactive transport processes in subsurface environments requires a sound understanding of both the biogeochemical complexity of the system and the spatially resolved transport of reactive species. However, most existing reactive transport models, for example in the field of contaminant hydrology, are specialized either in the simulation of the reactive or of the flow and transport processes. In this paper, we present and test the coupling of two highly flexible codes for the simulation of reactive transport processes in the subsurface: the Biogeochemical Reaction Network Simulator (BRNS), which contains a solver for kinetically and thermodynamically constrained biogeochemical reactions, and GeoSys/RockFlow, a multidimensional finite element subsurface flow and transport simulator. The new model, named GeoSysBRNS, maintains the full flexibility of the original models. The coupling is handled using an operator splitting scheme, which allows the reactive solver to be compiled into a problem specific library that is accessed by the transport simulator at runtime. The accuracy of the code coupling within GeoSysBRNS is demonstrated using two benchmark problems from the literature: a laboratory experiment on organic carbon degradation in a sand column via multiple microbial degradation pathways, and a dispersive mixing controlled bioreactive transport problem in aquifers, assuming three different reaction kinetics.

International audience; A fully transient, 2-dimensional physical and biological model has been developed to quantify the seasonal cycle of silica in the estuaries-coastal zone continuum of the Bay of Brest (France). The numerical model includes an explicit representation of the benthic-pelagic coupling, which is stimulated by the increasing density of an invasive megabenthic filter feeder, the slipper limpet Crepidula fornicata. The selected spatial resolution allows resolution of the heterogeneous density distribution of these organisms in the bay. Results show that the benthic nutrient dynamics are highly variable and strongly depend on the local conditions. This heterogeneity is not reflected in the pelagic phytoplankton Population dynamics because transport and mixing homogenize the distribution of nutrients and biomass. A seasonally resolved silica budget over the entire bay and estuaries emphasizes the important contribution of the benthic recycling fluxes to the supply of dissolved silica (dSi) during the productive period (similar to 50%, from 1 April to 1 September). In a prognostic scenario which forecasts the impact of removing the invasive benthic filter feeders, the dSi efflux is reduced by 63% and a pronounced harmful algal bloom of dinoflagellates develops in late summer.

A novel methodology for predicting upward diffusive fluxes of dissolved methane in gassy marine sediments is presented. The predicted fluxes are derived from a set of theoretical simulation data gener ated using a diagenetic reaction-transport model. The model calculates the upward methane flux for a given free gas depth (FGD) below the seafloor and a given in situ gas solubility, which together define the methane concentration gradient. Fluxes can thus be extracted from a nomogram of FGD and solubility parameter space. Because, in general, microorganisms anaerobically oxidize all dissolved methane before it can escape the sediment, the estimated fluxes are equivalent to the amount of methane trapped by this subsurface microbial barrier. A test of the approach using measured methane fluxes from Aarhus Bay, Denmark, reveals a statistically significant correlation between the observed and predicted fluxes. The predicted fluxes further show a low sensitivity toward enhanced sediment mixing by faunal activity, as well as the deposition flux and reactivity of organic matter. Therefore, only a limited amount of data at strategic coring sites is required to constrain the major physical and geochemical forcings for a particular study area in order to extrapolate fluxes at a regional scale. Because the FGD can be mapped over large areas of the seafloor from shipboard seismic survey, the new approach represents a means to estimate regional methane flux budgets for gassy sediments in a cost-efficient manner.

A reactive-transport model has been applied to investigate the dynamics of the sulfate-methane transition zone (SMTZ) in nearshore sediments of Aarhus Bay (Denmark). The sediments are influenced by seasonal variations of temperature and particulate organic carbon (POC) deposition flux at the sediment-water interface. Initially, the model was calibrated at steady state using field data collected at two sites (M1 and M5) in December 2004, and included a dynamic gas phase which determines the depth of the SMTZ. Simulations were then performed under transient conditions of heat propagation in the porous medium, which influenced the solubility of gaseous methane, the diffusion of solutes as well as the kinetic and bioenergetic constraints on redox conditions in the system. Results revealed important variations in local rates of anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM) over a seasonal cycle due to temperature variation. Seasonal perturbations in POC depositional flux had no influence on AOM rates but did have a strong bearing on sulfate reduction rates in the surface layers of the simulations at both stations. At M5, where the SMTZ was located 63 cm below the sediment-water interface, depth integrated AOM rates varied between 76 and 178 nmol cm-2 d-1. At M1, where the deeper SMTZ (221 cm) experienced less thermal variation, AOM rates varied relatively less (20 to 24 nmol cm-2 d-1). Furthermore, local and depth-integrated AOM rates over the year did not show a simple response to bottom water temperature but exhibited a hysteresis-type behavior related to time lags in solute transport and heat propagation. Overall, the solute concentration profiles were not very sensitive to the seasonal variability in rates or gas transport and the modeled vertical displacement of the SMTZ was limited to

A steady-state reaction-transport model is applied to sediments retrieved by gravity core from two stations (S10 and S13) in the Skagerrak to determine the main kinetic and thermodynamic controls on anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM). The model considers an extended biomass-implicit reaction network for organic carbon degradation, which includes extracellular hydrolysis of macromolecular organic matter, fermentation, sulfate reduction, methanogenesis, AOM, acetogenesis and acetotrophy. Catabolic reaction rates are determined using a modified Monod rate expression that explicitly accounts for limitation by the in situ catabolic energy yields. The fraction of total sulfate reduction due to AOM in the sulfate-methane transition zone (SMTZ) at each site is calculated. The model provides an explanation for the methane tailing phenomenon which is observed here and in other marine sediments, whereby methane diffuses up from the SMTZ to the top of the core without being consumed. The tailing is due to bioenergetic limitation of AOM in the sulfate reduction zone, because the methane concentration is too low to engender favorable thermodynamic drive. AOM is also bioenergetically inhibited below the SMTZ at both sites because of high hydrogen concentrations (3-6 nM). The model results imply there is no straightforward relationship between pore water concentrations and the minimum catabolic energy needed to support life because of the highly coupled nature of the reaction network. Best model fits are obtained with a minimum energy for AOM of 11 kJ mol-1, which is within the range reported in the literature for anaerobic processes.