Carbon emission and export from the Ket River, western Siberia

Abstract. Despite recent progress in the understanding of the carbon (C) cycle of
Siberian permafrost-affected rivers, spatial and seasonal dynamics of C
export and emission from medium-sized rivers (50 000–300 000 km2 watershed area) remain poorly known. Here we studied one of the largest tributaries of the Ob River, the Ket River (watershed = 94 000 km2), which drains through pristine taiga forest of the boreal zone in the West Siberian Lowland (WSL). We combined continuous and discrete measurements of carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration using
submersible CO2 sensor and floating chamber flux (FCO2), with
methane (CH4), dissolved organic and inorganic C (DOC and DIC, respectively), particulate organic C and total bacterial concentrations over an 800 km transect of the Ket River main stem and its 26 tributaries during spring
flood (May 2019) and 12 tributaries during summer baseflow (end of August–beginning of September 2019). The partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2)
was lower and less variable in the main stem (2000 to 2500 µatm)
compared to that in the tributaries (2000 to 5000 µatm). In the tributaries, the pCO2 was 40 % higher during baseflow compared to
spring flood, whereas in the main stem, it did not vary significantly across
the seasons. The methane concentration in the main stem and tributaries was
a factor of 300 to 1900 (flood period) and 100 to 150 times lower than that
of CO2 and ranged from 0.05 to 2.0 µmol L−1. The FCO2 ranged from 0.4 to 2.4 g C m−2 d−1 in the main channel and from
0.5 to 5.0 g C m−2 d−1 in the tributaries, being highest during August in the tributaries and weakly dependent on the season in the main channel. During summer baseflow, the DOC aromaticity, bacterial number, and
needleleaf forest coverage of the watershed positively affected CO2
concentrations and fluxes. We hypothesize that relatively low spatial and
seasonal variability in FCO2 of the Ket River is due to a flat homogeneous landscape (bogs and taiga forest) that results in long water
residence times and stable input of allochthonous dissolved organic matter (DOM), which dominate the FCO2. The open water period (May to October) C emission from the fluvial network (main stem and tributaries) of the Ket River was estimated
to 127 ± 11 Gg C yr−1, which is lower than the downstream dissolved and particulate C export during the same period. The estimated fluvial C
emissions are highly conservative and contain uncertainties linked to ignoring hotspots and hot moments of emissions, notably in the floodplain
zone. This stresses the need to improve the temporal resolution of FCO2 and water coverage across seasons and emphasizes the important role of WSL
rivers in the release of CO2 into the atmosphere.
