We cannot shrug off the shoulder seasons
Addressing knowledge and data gaps in an Arctic headwater
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15549296 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Arial J Shogren (0000-0002-1284-3836, Michigan State University, corresponding author), Jay P Zarnetske (0000-0001-7194-5245, Michigan State University), Benjamin W Abbott (0000-0001-5861-3481, Brigham Young University), Frances Iannucci (0000-0002-7554-1819, University of Vermont), William B Bowden (0000-0002-0150-5356, University of Vermont) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue | 10 |
| Pages | 104027-104027 |
| Publication date | 2020-06-16 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environmental Research Letters (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1748-9326 • E-ISSN: 1748-9326 |
| Publisher | IOP Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1088/1748-9326/ab9d3c |
| OpenAlex | W3036017702 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 147 |
As environmental change in the Arctic accelerates, there is a growing need to accurately quantify the response of Arctic ecosystems throughout the year. To assess the temporal coverage of observations of carbon and nutrient fluxes, we used literature synthesis, quantitative meta-analysis, and exploration of a novel biogeochemical dataset from one of the best-documented Arctic ecosystems: the headwaters of the Kuparuk River in Northern Alaska. The meta-analysis of 204 peer-reviewed studies revealed a strong temporal gap in observations of biogeochemistry and hydrology of the Kuparuk River, with substantially fewer observations from the early and late ‘shoulders’ of the thaw season (defined as the period before snowmelt or after plant senescence). To test and illustrate how much this bias might influence fundamental ecosystem level measurements, such as riverine carbon and nutrient fluxes, we used high-frequency, in-situ water chemistry sensors to estimate riverine export budgets across the thaw season for dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and nitrate (NO _3 ^− ) in the Kuparuk headwaters. With this novel dataset, we found that a large proportion (∼30%) of the annual export of DOC and NO _3 ^− occurred during the shoulder seasons, which are not well characterized even for this well-documented Arctic system. These analyses raise the broader question: what ecological information are we missing by giving these seasons the ‘cold shoulder’? As climate change alters seasonality, filling this major data gap in the shoulder seasons is crucial to understand the response of Arctic ecosystems
Arctic · Biogeochemical cycle · Biogeochemistry · Climate change · Ecosystem · Geography · Hydrology (agriculture · Permafrost · Physical geography · Snowmelt · Surface runoff · Tundra · Arctic and Antarctic ice dynamics · Climate change and permafrost · Cryospheric studies and observations · Environmental Science · Ecology · Geology · Oceanography
Temperature sensitivity of soil carbon decomposition and feedbacks to climate change
Climate change and the permafrost carbon feedback
Persistence of soil organic matter as an ecosystem property
Increasing River Discharge to the Arctic Ocean
Soil organic carbon pools in the northern circumpolar permafrost region
Longer thaw seasons increase nitrogen availability for leaching during fall in tundra soils
Tundra plant above-ground biomass and shrub dominance mapped across the North Slope of Alaska
Biomass offsets little or none of permafrost carbon release from soils, streams, and wildfire
Dissolved organic carbon and nitrogen release from boreal Holocene permafrost and seasonally frozen soils of Alaska
Dynamics of aboveground phytomass of the circumpolar Arctic tundra during the past three decades
Climate Change Effects on Hydroecology of Arctic Freshwater Ecosystems
Status and trends in Arctic vegetation
General Features of the Arctic Relevant to Climate Change in Freshwater Ecosystems
Climate Change in the Arctic - Permafrost, Thermokarst, and Why They Matter to the Non-Arctic World
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |