Inland waters play an important role in global carbon cycling. They emit large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and sequester and store significant quantities of carbon over centuries and millennia. Here, we present an updated estimate of the global lentic carbon sink. To do this, we compiled previously published rates of sediment carbon burial for lakes, reservoirs, ponds, and inland wetlands, including published global datasets and more recent studies. We then used a random forest regression approach to identify factors regulating carbon burial rates, considering properties unique to each waterbody or wetland such as area, maximum and mean depth, and age, as well as conditions in the region surrounding the waterbody, such as ecoregion, climate, and land use. Using identified relationships, we present an updated global estimate of carbon burial in lakes, reservoirs, and wetlands and report updated estimates of global lentic carbon burial on an annual basis. This approach simultaneously identifies regions that contribute substantially to the global lentic carbon sink and reduces uncertainty in global carbon burial estimates.

Primary Presenter: Nicholas Ray, Cornell University (ner35@cornell.edu)

Authors:

Nicholas Ray, Cornell University  ()

Peri Cooper, Cornell University  ()

Adam Heathcote, Science Museum of Minnesota  ()

N. John Anderson, Loughborough University  ()

Jorge Villa, University of Louisiana - Lafayette  ()

John Downing, University of Minnesota - Duluth  ()

Meredith Holgerson, Cornell University  ()