Author(s): Rose Cory, University of Michigan (First Author, Presenting Author) George Kling, University of Michigan
The Arctic is warming four times faster than Earth’s average. The impact of rapid warming on Arctic land carbon budgets depends strongly on lakes which account for a relatively high percentage of the land surface area in the Arctic. Lakes receive large loads of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) from land as water drains from the thawed soil layer through streams and rivers into lakes. Here we show that the concentration and composition of DOC draining from land to an arctic lake has changed over the past ~ 12 years. We attribute this change in DOC concentration and composition over time to deeper thaw of permafrost soils and altered hydrological flowpaths. The impacts of these changes on arctic land carbon budgets are not known.
