Moisture transport within atmospheric rivers is driven by a complex combination of processes, including convergence of moisture from different origins which change over the atmospheric river’s life cycle. The water vapor budget within an atmospheric river enables us to understand moisture sources and sinks (horizontal flux, evaporation and precipitation). Here, we focused on the water vapor budget of the exceptional atmospheric river associated with the storm Dennis that led to record-breaking precipitation on February 15th 2020. We used the WRF model to simulate the event and applied our new water vapor budget approach to the tracked atmospheric river. We also performed two sets of sensitivity experiments: one reducing the tropical moisture, and the other modifying the ocean evaporation to assess how these two main moisture sources affect the water vapor balance within the atmospheric river. We also study changes in the atmospheric river, cyclone and associated precipitation at landfall in the sensitivity experiments. For Dennis, tropical moisture played a prominent role in the early stages of the atmospheric river, while ocean evaporation became critical later. Additionally, the reduction of evaporation and also of tropical moisture is related to a decrease in precipitation over Europe. This study offers a new approach to understanding the evolution of atmospheric rivers and highlights the importance of different moisture processes. It provides a case study that helps to unravel feedback mechanisms and the impact of different perturbations on the water vapor balance of atmospheric rivers.

The drag coefficient (CDN), Stanton number (CHN) and Dalton number (CEN) are of particular importance for the bulk estimation of the surface turbulent fluxes of momentum, heat and water vapor at water surfaces. Although these bulk transfer coefficients have been extensively studied over the past several decades mainly in marine and large-lake environments, there are no studies focusing on their synthesis for many lakes. Here, we evaluated these coefficients through directly measured surface fluxes using the eddy-covariance technique over more than 30 lakes and reservoirs of different sizes and depths. Our analysis showed that generally CDN, CHN, CEN (adjusted to neutral atmospheric stability) were within the range reported in previous studies for large lakes and oceans. CHN was found to be on average a factor of 1.4 higher than CEN for all wind speeds, therefore, likely affecting the Bowen ratio method used for lake evaporation measurements. All bulk transfer coefficients exhibit substantial increase at low wind speeds (< 3 m s-1), which could not be explained by any of the existing physical approaches. However, the wind gustiness could partially explain this increase. At high wind speeds CDN, CHN, CEN remained relatively constant at values of 2 10-3, 1.5 10-3, 1.1 10 -3, respectively. We found that the variability of the transfer coefficients among the lakes could be associated with lake surface area or wind fetch. The empirical formula C=b1[1+b2exp(b3 U10)] described the dependence of CDN, CHN, CEN on wind speed well and it could be beneficial for modeling when coupling atmosphere and lakes.

Accounting for temporal changes in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from freshwaters remains a challenge for global and regional carbon budgets. Here, we synthesize 171 site-months of eddy covariance flux measurements of CO2 from 13 lakes and reservoirs in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) and quantify the magnitude and dynamics at multiple temporal scales. We found pronounced diel and sub-monthly oscillatory variations in CO2 flux at all sites. Diel variation converted sites to daily net sinks of CO2 in only 11% of site-months. Upscaled annual emissions had an average of 25% (range 3-58%) interannual variation. Given temporal variation remains under-represented in inventories of CO2 emissions from lakes and reservoirs, revisions in CO2 flux are needed using a better representation of sub-daily to interannual variability. Constraining short- and long-term variability is necessary to improve detection of temporal changes of CO2 fluxes in response to natural and anthropogenic drivers.

Accounting for temporal changes in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from freshwaters remains a challenge for global and regional carbon budgets. Here, we synthesize 171 site-months of eddy covariance flux measurements of CO2 from 13 lakes and reservoirs in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) and quantify dynamics at multiple temporal scales. We found pronounced sub-annual variability in CO2 flux at all sites. Accounting for diel variation, only 11% of site-months were net daily sinks of CO2. Annual CO2 emissions had an average of 25% (range 3-58%) interannual variation. Nighttime emissions regularly exceeded daytime emissions. Sources of CO2 flux variability were delineated through mutual information analysis. Sample analysis of CO2 fluxes indicate importance of continuous sampling. Constraining short- and long-term variability is necessary to improve detection of temporal changes of CO2 fluxes in response to natural and anthropogenic drivers.

Coastal vegetated habitats like seagrass meadows can mitigate anthropogenic carbon emissions by sequestering CO2 as “blue carbon” (BC). Already, some coastal ecosystems are actively managed to enhance BC storage, with associated BC stocks included in national greenhouse gas inventories or traded on international markets. However, the extent to which BC burial fluxes are enhanced or counteracted by other carbon fluxes, especially air-water CO2 flux (FCO2) remains poorly understood. To this end, we synthesized all available direct FCO2 measurements over seagrass meadows made using a common method (atmospheric Eddy Covariance), across a globally-representative range of ecotypes. Of the four sites with seasonal data coverage, two were net CO2 sources, with average FCO2 equivalent to 44 - 115% of the global average BC burial rate. At the remaining sites, net CO2 uptake was 101 - 888% of average BC burial. A wavelet coherence analysis demonstrates that FCO2 was most strongly related to physical factors like temperature, wind, and tides. In particular, tidal forcing appears to shape global-scale patterns in FCO2, likely due to a complex suite of drivers including: lateral carbon exchange, bottom-driven turbulence, and pore-water pumping. Lastly, sea-surface drag coefficients were always greater than prediction for the open ocean, supporting a universal enhancement of gas-transfer in shallow coastal waters. Our study points to the need for a more comprehensive approach to BC assessments, considering not only organic carbon storage, but also air-water CO2 exchange, and its complex biogeochemical and physical drivers.