North American rivers are a sizable source of atmospheric carbon
Saturday, March 31, 2012 - 09:00
in Earth & Climate
To fulfill the need for an ever more accurate and complete understanding of the flow of carbon through the Earth system, a flurry of research has taken place in the past decade on previously overlooked aspects of the carbon cycle. Researchers have investigated the roles of rivers, lakes, and streams in transporting carbon, often with mixed, or only broadly constrained, results. Further, many investigations have traditionally focused on a small number of sites. Though such focused measurements are important for pinning down spatial and temporal changes in the local exchange of carbon, they make expanding the results to broader regions difficult.