Improving estimates of greenhouse gas emissions from lakes

Abstract

Lakes emit carbon dioxide and methane and thus are an important part of global climate. Many estimates of emissions for individual lakes are based on a measurement from a single location within the lake, but as Schilder et al. point out, emissions can vary across the lake. They collected methane and carbon dioxide measurements at several locations for each of 32 lakes in Europe and found that estimates based only on near‐shore measurements tended to underestimate diffusive emissions, whereas those based only on measurements taken at the lakes' center tended to overestimate emissions. The study provides a method to improve estimates of greenhouse gas emissions from lakes.