The lakes that dot the high arctic have long been thought to be a carbon sink.. that may be changing with global warming.
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The boreal forests and unglaciated polar lowlands are Earth’s most lake-rich biome, hosting nearly half of the planet’s lakes by surface area. While precise data are sparse, a 2015 satellite-based inventory estimates some 3.5 million lakes cover a total of around 150,000 square miles in the Arctic. But due to the difficulty of conducting research in the remote north, relatively little is known about how these vast freshwater ecosystems are responding to the sweeping changes underway.
One of scientists’ key questions is how rising temperatures, shrinking ice seasons, and the increasing precipitation projected for many parts of the Arctic might affect lakes’ carbon cycles. Put simply, this cycle describes the actions of aquatic microbes that break down organic material — exhaling carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases — and phytoplankton that take up carbon dioxide to build their skeletons — releasing oxygen. Lakes that breathe out more carbon dioxide than they take in are net carbon sources, while those that on balance remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere are sinks.
In the frozen north, lakes have, over millennia, locked up huge stores of carbon in their sediments. But are changing Arctic conditions shifting sinks to sources, unleashing emissions that will accelerate climate change? That’s what Hazuková, a PhD candidate in ecology at the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute, is here to find out.
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