Young organic matter as a source of carbon dioxide outgassing from Amazonian rivers

Emilio Mayorga (), Anthony K. Aufdenkampe, Caroline A. Masiello, Alex V. Krusche, John I. Hedges, Paul D. Quay, Jeffrey E. Richey and Thomas A. Brown
Additional contact information
Emilio Mayorga: University of Washington
Anthony K. Aufdenkampe: Stroud Water Research Center
Caroline A. Masiello: Rice University
Alex V. Krusche: CENA-USP
John I. Hedges: University of Washington
Paul D. Quay: University of Washington
Jeffrey E. Richey: University of Washington
Thomas A. Brown: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Nature, 2005, vol. 436, issue 7050, 538-541

Abstract: Amazon basin blues Rivers and their surrounding environments have received little attention in studies addressing regional carbon budgets and global climate change. But recent evidence suggests that Amazonian rivers outgas a significant amount of carbon dioxide. An extensive geochemical survey of rivers in the Amazon basin now finds that the dominant source of carbon dioxide is the respiration of organic matter that is less than five years old, probably originating from near-stream vegetation. Although most of the organic matter transported by these rivers is tens to thousands of years old, it is this small rapidly cycling pool of organic matter that is responsible for the large carbon dioxide fluxes from the rivers to the atmosphere in the humid tropics.

Date: 2005
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature03880 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:436:y:2005:i:7050:d:10.1038_nature03880

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature03880

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().