Marked isotopic variability within and between the Amazon River and marine dissolved black carbon pools

Alysha Coppola; Michael Seidel; Daniel Viviroli; Gabriela Nascimento; Negar Haghipour; Brandi Revels; Samuel Abiven; Matthew Jones; Jeffrey Richey; Timothy Eglinton; Thorsten Dittmar; Michael Schmidt

doi:10.1038/s41467-019-11543-9

Marked isotopic variability within and between the Amazon River and marine dissolved black carbon pools

Alysha Coppola (Lead Author), Michael Seidel, Daniel Viviroli, Gabriela Nascimento, Negar Haghipour, Brandi Revels, Samuel Abiven, Matthew Jones, Jeffrey Richey, Timothy Eglinton, Thorsten Dittmar, Michael Schmidt

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Abstract

Riverine dissolved organic carbon (DOC) contains charcoal byproducts, termed black carbon (BC). To determine the significance of BC as a sink of atmospheric CO2 and reconcile budgets, the sources and fate of this large, slow-cycling and elusive carbon pool must be constrained. The Amazon River is a significant part of global BC cycling because it exports an order of magnitude more DOC, and thus dissolved BC (DBC), than any other river. We report spatially resolved DBC quantity and radiocarbon (Δ14C) measurements, paired with molecular-level characterization of dissolved organic matter from the Amazon River and tributaries during low discharge. The proportion of BC-like polycyclic aromatic structures decreases downstream, but marked spatial variability in abundance and Δ14C values of DBC molecular markers imply dynamic sources and cycling in a manner that is incongruent with bulk DOC. We estimate a flux from the Amazon River of 1.9–2.7 Tg DBC yr−1 that is composed of predominately young DBC, suggesting that loss processes of modern DBC are important.

Original language	English
Article number	4018
Journal	Nature Communications
Volume	10
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-11543-9
Publication status	Published - 5 Sep 2019

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10.1038/s41467-019-11543-9Licence: CC BY

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Cite this

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title = "Marked isotopic variability within and between the Amazon River and marine dissolved black carbon pools",

abstract = "Riverine dissolved organic carbon (DOC) contains charcoal byproducts, termed black carbon (BC). To determine the significance of BC as a sink of atmospheric CO2 and reconcile budgets, the sources and fate of this large, slow-cycling and elusive carbon pool must be constrained. The Amazon River is a significant part of global BC cycling because it exports an order of magnitude more DOC, and thus dissolved BC (DBC), than any other river. We report spatially resolved DBC quantity and radiocarbon (Δ14C) measurements, paired with molecular-level characterization of dissolved organic matter from the Amazon River and tributaries during low discharge. The proportion of BC-like polycyclic aromatic structures decreases downstream, but marked spatial variability in abundance and Δ14C values of DBC molecular markers imply dynamic sources and cycling in a manner that is incongruent with bulk DOC. We estimate a flux from the Amazon River of 1.9–2.7 Tg DBC yr−1 that is composed of predominately young DBC, suggesting that loss processes of modern DBC are important.",

author = "Alysha Coppola and Michael Seidel and Daniel Viviroli and Gabriela Nascimento and Negar Haghipour and Brandi Revels and Samuel Abiven and Matthew Jones and Jeffrey Richey and Timothy Eglinton and Thorsten Dittmar and Michael Schmidt",

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T1 - Marked isotopic variability within and between the Amazon River and marine dissolved black carbon pools

AU - Coppola, Alysha

AU - Seidel, Michael

AU - Viviroli, Daniel

AU - Nascimento, Gabriela

AU - Haghipour, Negar

AU - Revels, Brandi

AU - Abiven, Samuel

AU - Jones, Matthew

AU - Richey, Jeffrey

AU - Eglinton, Timothy

AU - Dittmar, Thorsten

AU - Schmidt, Michael

PY - 2019/9/5

Y1 - 2019/9/5

N2 - Riverine dissolved organic carbon (DOC) contains charcoal byproducts, termed black carbon (BC). To determine the significance of BC as a sink of atmospheric CO2 and reconcile budgets, the sources and fate of this large, slow-cycling and elusive carbon pool must be constrained. The Amazon River is a significant part of global BC cycling because it exports an order of magnitude more DOC, and thus dissolved BC (DBC), than any other river. We report spatially resolved DBC quantity and radiocarbon (Δ14C) measurements, paired with molecular-level characterization of dissolved organic matter from the Amazon River and tributaries during low discharge. The proportion of BC-like polycyclic aromatic structures decreases downstream, but marked spatial variability in abundance and Δ14C values of DBC molecular markers imply dynamic sources and cycling in a manner that is incongruent with bulk DOC. We estimate a flux from the Amazon River of 1.9–2.7 Tg DBC yr−1 that is composed of predominately young DBC, suggesting that loss processes of modern DBC are important.

AB - Riverine dissolved organic carbon (DOC) contains charcoal byproducts, termed black carbon (BC). To determine the significance of BC as a sink of atmospheric CO2 and reconcile budgets, the sources and fate of this large, slow-cycling and elusive carbon pool must be constrained. The Amazon River is a significant part of global BC cycling because it exports an order of magnitude more DOC, and thus dissolved BC (DBC), than any other river. We report spatially resolved DBC quantity and radiocarbon (Δ14C) measurements, paired with molecular-level characterization of dissolved organic matter from the Amazon River and tributaries during low discharge. The proportion of BC-like polycyclic aromatic structures decreases downstream, but marked spatial variability in abundance and Δ14C values of DBC molecular markers imply dynamic sources and cycling in a manner that is incongruent with bulk DOC. We estimate a flux from the Amazon River of 1.9–2.7 Tg DBC yr−1 that is composed of predominately young DBC, suggesting that loss processes of modern DBC are important.

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JO - Nature Communications

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