Organic carbon burial by river meandering  partially offsets bank erosion carbon fluxes  in a discontinuous permafrost floodplain

Douglas, Madison M.; Li, Gen K.; Fischer, Woodward W.; Rowland, Joel C.; Kemeny, Preston C.; West, A. Joshua; Schwenk, Jon; Piliouras, Anastasia P.; Chadwick, Austin J.; Lamb, Michael P.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-10-421-2022

Articles | Volume 10, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-10-421-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-10-421-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 10, issue 3

Research article

|

10 May 2022

Research article |

| 10 May 2022

Organic carbon burial by river meandering partially offsets bank erosion carbon fluxes in a discontinuous permafrost floodplain

Madison M. Douglas, Gen K. Li, Woodward W. Fischer, Joel C. Rowland, Preston C. Kemeny, A. Joshua West, Jon Schwenk, Anastasia P. Piliouras, Austin J. Chadwick, and Michael P. Lamb

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-10-421-2022-supplement

Data sets

1981-2010 High-Resolution Temperature and Precipitation Maps for Alaska C. Daly, J. Smith, and M. Halbleib https://prism.oregonstate.edu/projects/public/alaska/grids

Pan-arctic river bank erosion and accretion, and planform metrics measured over intervals ranging from 1973 to 2016 J. Rowland, S. Stauffer, and J. Schwenk https://doi.org/10.15485/1571527

Short summary

Arctic rivers erode into permafrost and mobilize organic carbon, which can react to form greenhouse gasses or be re-buried in floodplain deposits. We collected samples on a permafrost floodplain in Alaska to determine if more carbon is eroded or deposited by river meandering. The floodplain contained a mixture of young carbon fixed by the biosphere and old, re-deposited carbon. Thus, sediment storage may allow Arctic river floodplains to retain aged organic carbon even when permafrost thaws.