Air–water CO2 flux in an algae bloom year for Lake Hongfeng, Southwest China: implications for the carbon cycle of global inland waters

The carbon cycle of global inland waters is quantitatively comparable to other components in the global carbon budget. Among inland waters, a significant part is man-made lakes formed by damming rivers. Man-made lakes are undergoing a rapid increase in number and size. Human impacts and frequent algae blooms lead to it necessary to make a better constraint on their carbon cycles. Here, we make a primary estimation on the air–water CO2 transfer flux through an algae bloom year for a subtropical man-made lake—Hongfeng Lake, Southwest China. To do this a new type of glass bottles was designed for content and isotopic analysis of DIC and other environmental parameters. At the early stage of algae bloom, CO2 was transferred from the atmosphere to the lake with a net flux of 1.770 g·C·m−2. Later, the partial pressure (pCO2) of the aqueous CO2 increased rapidly and the lake outgassed to the atmosphere with a net flux of 95.727 g·C·m−2. In the remaining days, the lake again took up CO2 from the atmosphere with a net flux of 14.804 g·C·m−2. As a whole, Lake Hongfeng released 4527 t C to the atmosphere, accounting for one-third of the atmosphere/soil CO2 sequestered by chemical weathering in the whole drainage. With an empirical mode decomposition method, we found air temperature plays a major role in controlling water temperature, aqueous pCO2 and hence CO2 flux. This work indicates a necessity to make detailed and comprehensive carbon budgets in man-made lakes. © 2017, Science Press, Institute of Geochemistry, CAS and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany.