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Fluxes of dissolved carbon dioxide and inorganic carbon from an upland peat catchment: implications for soil respiration

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Abstract.

This study uses long-term water chemistry records for a circum-neutral peat stream to reconstruct a 7-year record of dissolved CO2 and DIC flux from the catchment. Combining catchment flux with a knowledge of in-stream metabolism and gas evasion from the stream surface enables an estimate of the dissolved CO2 content of water emerging from the peat profile to be made; furthermore, these can be used to estimate soil CO2 respiration. In this way multi-annual records of CO2 production can be reconstructed, and therefore inter-annual controls on production examined. The results suggest that:(i) Stream evasion of CO2 within the catchment varied between 80 and 220 g C/m of stream/yr, while in-stream metabolism produces between 1.0 and 2.9 g C/m of stream/yr;

Export of dissolved CO2 emerging from the soil profile, above that expected at equilibrium with the atmosphere, varies between 9.6 and 25.6 tonnes,C/km2/yr; and

The export of dissolved CO2 implies a soil respiration rate of between 64.2 and 94.9 tonnes C/km2/yr.

The inter-annual variation in both dissolved CO2 flux and soil CO2 respiration suggests that severe drought has no long-term effect on CO2 production and that temperature-based models of soil CO2 respiration will be adequate in all but the severest of summer droughts. The inter-annual variation in CO2 flux shows that CO2 production is decoupled from dissolved organic carbon (DOC) production. The decoupling of DOC and dissolved CO2 production shows that enzymatic-latch production of DOC is an anaerobic process and will not increase soil CO2 respiration.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geological Sciences, Science Laboratories, University of Durham, South Road, DH1 3LE, Durham, UK

    Fred Worrall

  2. Department of Geography, Science Laboratories, University of Durham, South Road, DH1 3LE, Durham, UK

    Tim Burt

  3. Environmental Change Network, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Lancaster, Lancaster, Bailrigg, LA1 4AP, UK

    John Adamson

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Correspondence to Fred Worrall.

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Worrall, F., Burt, T. & Adamson, J. Fluxes of dissolved carbon dioxide and inorganic carbon from an upland peat catchment: implications for soil respiration. Biogeochemistry 73, 515–539 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-004-1717-2

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