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Carbon Dioxide and Methane Emissions from a Temperate Salt Marsh Tidal Creek
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  • Branimir Trifunovic,
  • Alma Vázquez-Lule,
  • Margaret Capooci,
  • Angelia Lyn Seyfferth,
  • Carlos Moffat,
  • Rodrigo Vargas
Branimir Trifunovic
University of Delaware
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Alma Vázquez-Lule
University of Delaware
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Margaret Capooci
University of Delawarere
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Angelia Lyn Seyfferth
University of Delaware
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Carlos Moffat
University of Delaware
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Rodrigo Vargas
University of Delaware

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Abstract

Coastal salt marshes store large amounts of carbon but the magnitude and patterns of greenhouse gas (GHG; i.e., carbon dioxide (CO) and methane (CH)) fluxes are unclear. Information about GHG fluxes from these ecosystems comes from studies of sediments or at the ecosystem-scale (eddy covariance) but fluxes from tidal creeks are unknown. We measured GHG concentrations in water, water quality, meteorology, sediment CO efflux, ecosystem-scale GHG fluxes, and plant phenology; all at half-hour time-steps over one year. Manual creek GHG flux measurements were used to calculate gas transfer velocity () and parameterize a model of water-to-atmosphere GHG fluxes. The creek was a source of GHGs to the atmosphere where tidal patterns controlled diel variability. Dissolved oxygen and wind speed were negatively correlated with creek CH efflux. Despite lacking a seasonal pattern, creek CO efflux was correlated with drivers such as turbidity across phenological phases. Overall, night-time creek CO efflux (3.6 ± 0.63 µmol/m/s) was over two times higher than night-time marsh sediment CO efflux (1.5 ± 1.23 µmol/m/s). Creek CH efflux (17.5 ± 6.9 nmol/m/s) was four times lower than ecosystem-scale CH fluxes (68.1 ± 52.3 nmol/m/s) across the year. These results suggest that tidal creeks are potential hotspots for CO emissions and could contribute to lateral transport of CH to the coastal ocean due to supersaturation of CH (>6000 µmol/mol) in water This study provides insights for modelling GHG efflux from tidal creeks and suggests that changes in tide stage overshadow water temperature in determining magnitudes of fluxes.
Aug 2020Published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences volume 125 issue 8. 10.1029/2019JG005558