Abstract
Land-to-water hydrological connections represent a key regulatory mechanism of carbon transport, controlling carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from lakes; however, as of yet, there is no assessment of its role at a pan-Arctic scale across large climatic and topographical gradients. We hypothesized that hydrologically well-connected lakes in wetter regions are CO2 sources fueled by stronger lateral fluxes of external carbon relative to drier regions. However, based on data from >200 Arctic lakes, we found that lakes in drier regions have higher and more variable annual CO2 emissions (\({37.0}_{6.2}^{146.0}\) gC m-2 yr-1, \({{median}}_{Q1}^{Q3}\)) compared to lakes in wetter regions (\({8.0}_{1.7}^{17.3}\) gC m-2 yr-1), with both the lowest and the highest fluxes recorded among dryland lakes. We hypothesize that with increasing wetness, the relative proportion of fluvial emissions increases, whereas in drier landscapes where lakes often have limited stream export, carbon inputs can be retained and more efficiently emitted from lakes.
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The dataset analyzed in this study is available on Figshare (10.6084/m9.figshare.31136239)93.
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Acknowledgements
Financial support was provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation (grants #2021713 and #2113908 to J.E.S.), Robert and Judith Sturgis Family Foundation (V.H.), the Swedish Research Council (grant #2020-04445 to J.K.), NASA AboVE Project (80NSSC22K1237 to D.B.). To carry out this synthesis, V.H. was supported by the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography LOREX Fellowship. VH thanks Ryan Sponseller for discussions.
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V.H., J.K. and J.E.S. co-designed the study and acquired funding to conduct this synthesis. Data were acquired by V.H., F.A., C.G., J.K., C.S., M.J.B., D.E.B., J.F.D., A.J., E.L., S.E.T., and J.E.S. and curated by V.H., F.A., C.G., and C.S. Formal analysis and figure preparation was done by V.H. She also wrote the first draft of the manuscript; all-coathors (V.H., F.A., C.G., J.K., C.S., M.J.B., D.E.B., J.F.D., A.J., E.L., S.E.T., and J.E.S.) provided substantial and meaningful input and approved the final version.
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Hazuková, V., Alriksson, F., Gudasz, C. et al. Higher, but more variable, annual CO2 emissions from lakes in drier Arctic landscapes. Commun Earth Environ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03275-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03275-8
