The importance of freshwater systems to the net atmospheric exchange of
carbon dioxide and methane with a rapidly changing high Arctic watershed

Emmerton, Craig A.; St. Louis, Vincent L.; Lehnherr, Igor; Graydon, Jennifer A.; Kirk, Jane L.; Rondeau, Kimberly J.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-5849-2016

Articles | Volume 13, issue 20

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-5849-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-5849-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 13, issue 20

Research article

|

26 Oct 2016

Research article |

| 26 Oct 2016

The importance of freshwater systems to the net atmospheric exchange of carbon dioxide and methane with a rapidly changing high Arctic watershed

Craig A. Emmerton, Vincent L. St. Louis, Igor Lehnherr, Jennifer A. Graydon, Jane L. Kirk, and Kimberly J. Rondeau

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Final revised paper (published on 26 Oct 2016)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 14 Mar 2016)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

- Printer-friendly version

- Supplement

RC1: 'review of the article from Emmerton et al., 2016', Anonymous Referee #1, 15 Jun 2016
RC2: 'Comments by editor', Fortunat Joos, 05 Jul 2016
AC1: 'Response to Reviewer Comments', Craig Emmerton, 02 Aug 2016
AC2: 'Revised manuscript document w/tracked changes', Craig Emmerton, 02 Aug 2016
AC3: 'Revised SI document w/tracked changes', Craig Emmerton, 02 Aug 2016

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (16 Aug 2016) by Fortunat Joos

AR by Craig Emmerton on behalf of the Authors (16 Aug 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (17 Aug 2016) by Fortunat Joos

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (07 Sep 2016)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Scientifically speaking, authors took into account many of comments and corrections I suggested. However, the introduction and the discussion, which have been strongly modified, are highly difficult to read. Many sentences are still unclear; the sentence structure should be simplified (less coma, less conjunctions).

Some parts of the paper are written in a style that seems somewhat impenetrable. Admittedly, this is a matter of taste, but sentences lack of intelligibility. Please find some examples:
• In the introduction: ‘Permafrost in northern soils is an effective barrier to drainage of soils, and combined with generally low-elevation topography, means shallow standing water is prevalent throughout northern latitudes’
• ‘Cold climates, short growing seasons, and light limitation in stained, carbon-rich waters can inhibit activities of aquatic primary producers (Karlsson et al., 2009), and therefore the uptake of atmospheric CO2 by the lake ecosystem. Conversely, heterotrophic respiration by microbes, amplified under favourable biogeochemical conditions, continues perennially in most lake waters and sediments, therefore continuously releasing CO2 to the water column.’
• In the discussion section: These, another other, isolated systems concentrate many solutes in their waters including degraded allochthonous and fresh autochthonous DOC (Tank et al., 2009), which would be available as a source of energy to heterotrophs.
Although many references have been added to the discussion, this section has been considerably extended (almost 5 pages and a half). Authors should shorten the discussion section keeping the better consideration of related work and the appropriate references.
Both introduction and discussion should be rephrased and clarified before a new review.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (Editor review) (08 Sep 2016) by Fortunat Joos

AR by Craig Emmerton on behalf of the Authors (24 Sep 2016)

ED: Publish as is (28 Sep 2016) by Fortunat Joos

AR by Craig Emmerton on behalf of the Authors (04 Oct 2016) Manuscript

Short summary

It is unknown if lakes are important contributors to the total transfer of greenhouse gases between high Arctic regions and the atmosphere. We measured the transfer of carbon greenhouse gases between lakes and the atmosphere and compared results with adjacent landscapes. We found lakes were weak emitters of the gases to the atmosphere, compared to contributions of terrestrial ecosystems, and will likely continue to be inconsequential to regional carbon cycling in a warmer future climate.