Articles | Volume 14, issue 8
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-14-2019-2017
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-14-2019-2017
Research article
 | 
18 Apr 2017
Research article |  | 18 Apr 2017

Timescale dependence of environmental controls on methane efflux from Poyang Hu, China

Lixiang Liu, Ming Xu, Renqiang Li, and Rui Shao

Abstract. Lakes are an important natural source of CH4 to the atmosphere. However, the multi-seasonal CH4 efflux from lakes has been rarely studied. In this study, the CH4 efflux from Poyang Hu, the largest freshwater lake in China, was measured monthly over a 4-year period by using the floating-chamber technique. The mean annual CH4 efflux throughout the 4 years was 0.54 mmol m−2 day−1, ranging from 0.47 to 0.60 mmol m−2 day−1. The CH4 efflux had a high seasonal variation with an average summer (June to August) efflux of 1.34 mmol m−2 day−1 and winter (December to February) efflux of merely 0.18 mmol m−2 day−1. The efflux showed no apparent diel pattern, although most of the peak effluxes appeared in the late morning, from 10:00 to 12:00 CST (GMT + 8). Multivariate stepwise regression on a seasonal scale showed that environmental factors, such as sediment temperature, sediment total nitrogen content, dissolved oxygen, and total phosphorus content in the water, mainly regulated the CH4 efflux. However, the CH4 efflux only showed a strong positive linear correlation with wind speed within 1 day on a bihourly scale in the multivariate regression analyses but almost no correlation with wind speed on diurnal and seasonal scales.

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Short summary
We examined diel and seasonal variations of CH4 efflux and environmental factors. Although CH4 efflux showed no apparent diel pattern, summer CH4 efflux was significantly higher than that of the other three seasons. CH4 effluxes were highly timescale dependent on wind, substrate availability, and sediment temperature. The timescale dependence of environmental controls on CH4 effluxes has important implications in modeling CH4 emissions in lakes.
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