Carbon dioxide fluxes associated with synoptic weather events over a southern inland water

Abstract:

Evidence indicates that inland waters play an important role in regional and global carbon budget through releasing a substantial carbon into the atmosphere. To better quantify how environmental variables affect CO2 exchange between inland waters and the atmosphere and its temporal variations, we have conducted direct, long-term measurements of CO2 fluxes across the water-atmosphere interface over a large southern open water of Ross Barnett Reservoir in central Mississippi. Our data indicate that large CO2 flux pulses occurred occasionally throughout the course of a year with the duration of a few days for each pulse. Here we analyzed and demonstrated that these CO2 flux pulses were associated with the passages of synoptic weather events. Our preliminary results indicated that these synoptic weather events (e.g., extratropical clones and cold air bursts) led to the enhanced mechanical mixing due to increasing wind speeds and the instability of the atmospheric surface layer due to the decreasing air temperature. As a consequence, in-water processes were also substantially altered accordingly. Due to the dramatic decrease in air temperature caused by the events, the temperature in the water surface layer was largely reduced, generating in-water convection conditions and thus leading to the increased depths of the mixing layer in the water, as reflected by the water temperature profiles. The enhanced mechanical mixing in the atmospheric surface layer may have further contributed to the deepened mixing layer in the water. Our suggestions suggest that high CO2 effluxes during the pulse events were largely attributed to changes in the water-side physical processes that are directly linked to rapid changes in atmospheric processes associated with synoptic weather events. Given its substantial contribution of CO2 flux pulses to carbon emission, such physical processes should be taken into account when carbon emissions from inland waters are quantified.