Back to Search
Start Over
Permafrost and lakes control river isotope composition across a boreal Arctic transect in the Western Siberian lowlands
- Source :
- Environmental research letters. 2018. Vol. 13. P. 034028 (1-11)
- Publication Year :
- 2018
- Publisher :
- Umeå universitet, Institutionen för ekologi, miljö och geovetenskap, 2018.
-
Abstract
- The Western Siberian Lowlands (WSL) store large quantities of organic carbon that will be exposed and mobilized by the thawing of permafrost. The fate of mobilized carbon, however, is not well understood, partly because of inadequate knowledge of hydrological controls in the region which has a vast low-relief surface area, extensive lake and wetland coverage and gradually increasing permafrost influence. We used stable water isotopes to improve our understanding of dominant landscape controls on the hydrology of the WSL. We sampled rivers along a 1700 km South–North transect from permafrost-free to continuous permafrost repeatedly over three years, and derived isotope proxies for catchment hydrological responsiveness and connectivity. We found correlations between the isotope proxies and catchment characteristics, suggesting that lakes and wetlands are intimately connected to rivers, and that permafrost increases the responsiveness of the catchment to rainfall and snowmelt events, reducing catchment mean transit times. Our work provides rare isotope-based field evidence that permafrost and lakes/wetlands influence hydrological pathways across a wide range of spatial scales (10–105 km2) and permafrost coverage (0%–70%). This has important implications, because both permafrost extent and lake/wetland coverage are affected by permafrost thaw in the changing climate. Changes in these hydrological landscape controls are likely to alter carbon export and emission via inland waters, which may be of global significance.
- Subjects :
- endocrine system
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
0208 environmental biotechnology
Wetland
02 engineering and technology
Западно-Сибирская низменность
Oceanografi, hydrologi och vattenresurser
водно-болотные угодья
Permafrost
01 natural sciences
вечная мерлота
стабильные изотопы
Oceanography, Hydrology and Water Resources
Western Siberia Lowlands
Meltwater
Transect
stable water isotopes
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
General Environmental Science
Total organic carbon
geography
geography.geographical_feature_category
Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
Stable isotope ratio
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
020801 environmental engineering
Boreal
Arctic
hydrological connectivity
Environmental science
Physical geography
mean transit time
permafrost
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Environmental research letters. 2018. Vol. 13. P. 034028 (1-11)
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....66bccfb36453b4c69b4e313c93b0fbb2