Datensatz

Zusammenfassung

Waterbodies in the arctic permafrost zone are considered a major source of the greenhouse gas methane (CH4). However, the spatio-temporal variability of CH4 fluxes from waterbodies complicates spatial extrapolation of CH4 measurements at individual waterbodies. Therefore, the contribution of CH4 emissions from different waterbody types to the CH4 budget of the arctic permafrost zone has not yet been well constrained. To approach this problem, our study aimed i) at understanding if there are correlations between waterbodies and CH4 fluxes on a larger spatial extent containing several waterbodies and ii) at quantifying the influence of the spatial resolution of CH4 flux data on potential relations. Our two study areas of 1000 km² each are located in the northern and central part of the Mackenzie Delta, arctic Canada. We classified the waterbodies using maps from the circum-arctic Permafrost Region Pond and Lake Database (PeRL) based on TerraSAR-X data with a spatial resolution of 2.5 m x 2.5 m. We used the backscatter signals of Sentinel-1 data to determine whether or not waterbodies were freezing to the bottom to divide them into the two classes “deep” (> 2 m depth) and “shallow” (< 2 m depth). The CH4 flux map with a spatial resolution of 100 m x 100 m was calculated from data derived via the eddy-covariance technique from two aircraft campaigns in July 2012 and 2013. We coarsened the resolution of the CH4 flux map manually, to analyze if different spatial resolutions of CH4 flux data have an effect on the relation between waterbody characteristics (coverage, number, depth, size) and CH4 flux. We found that in both study areas, there was no correlation at any spatial resolution between the area fraction covered with water and the CH4 flux at a significance level of α = 0.05. We did not find consistent correlations or patterns between the number, size or depth of waterbodies and the CH4 flux in the two study areas. While there was no significant correlation in the central study area, in the northern study area a higher number of small or shallow waterbodies slightly increased the CH4 flux, whereas deep waterbodies decreased the CH4 flux. Our results indicate that waterbodies in permafrost landscapes do not necessarily act as significant CH4 emission hotspots on a regional scale containing both waterbodies and wetlands.