Aquatic Greenhouse Gas Emissions in a Changing World
Dr.
Tonya
DelSontro
Department
F.-A.
Forel
for
Environmental
and
Aquatic
Science;
Faculty
of
Science
University
of
Geneva,
Switzerland
It is now widely known that inland waters (i.e., lakes, reservoirs and rivers) emit significant amounts of greenhouse gases (GHG; i.e., CO2, CH4, N2O) – one aspect of the role inland waters play in climate change and in the global carbon cycle.
As the number of aquatic GHG emission studies has increased in the last 10+ years, we have elucidated more insight into the gas sources, fluxes and relevant drivers of both, but many questions remain, especially regarding how gas dynamics will be impacted by environmental changes such as climate warming and eutrophication. In order to better prepare for and/or mitigate future aquatic GHG emissions resulting from such changes, we must understand what drives emission at multiple scales – from local to regional to global – as the drivers may vary widely.
In this talk, Dr. DelSontro will provide examples of her recent work on regional and global upscaling of lake and reservoir GHG emissions using a driver-based approach. She will then use these driver-based approaches to make predictions of future CH4 emissions, specifically, due to projections of changes in relevant drivers at regional- and global-scales. Ultimately, the driver-based approach to upscaling emissions improves current estimates and provides the means for making realistic predictions of aquatic GHG emissions undergoing environmental change.