Northern lakes are important sources of greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere. Emissions are expected to increase as the climate continues to warm. Even so, lake carbon budgets are currently poorly constrained. This is in part because of a limited understanding of the processes that govern the flux. This thesis focuses on the physical and biogeochemical drivers of carbon trace gas emissions from three small, post-glacial lakes situated within the Stordalen Mire, a subarctic peatland underlain by thawing permafrost in northern Sweden. A unique, multiyear dataset is used to quantify the importance of different emission pathways – ebullition, turbulence-driven diffusion and release from storage – on short and long timescales. In summer and on seasonal to interannual timescales, emissions are robust functions of thermal energy input. Short-term storage-and-release cycles are governed by kinetic drivers, such as turbulence fuelled by wind shear and, to a lesser extent, by thermal convection. In winter, when the lakes are ice-covered, persistent anoxia and density-driven currents enable methane accumulation at rates exceeding summer emissions. Release at ice-off in spring can constitute the majority of annual methane emissions and scales predictably with ice-cover season length, except in warm winters when snowmelt displaces lake water. Most lake flux studies focus on the warmest summer months and omit the spring efflux, as well as emissions in the colder ice-free months which, because of the well-known temperature-dependency of carbon cycling processes, tend to be low. The latter sampling bias may lead to a substantial overestimation of the ice-free flux in regional and global lake emission budgets. Temperature proxies, potentially combined with gas transfer models, can efficiently gap-fill colder months to arrive at a more representative flux estimate, but important feedbacks, such as lake degassing with increasing wind speed, must be taken into account. The mechanisms emerging from intense study of the Stordalen lakes are likely to be found in a majority of northern lakes, which are small, seasonally ice-covered and of post-glacial origin. However, because gas transfer velocity and temperature sensitivity are spatiotemporally variable, field observations remain essential for the development and calibration of models, and to predict future emissions.

Lakes and reservoirs are important emitters of climate forcing trace gases. Various environmental drivers of the flux, such as temperature and wind speed, have been identified, but their relative importance remains poorly understood. Here we use an extensive field dataset to disentangle physical and biogeochemical controls on the turbulence-driven diffusive flux of methane (CH4) on daily to multi-year timescales. We compare 8 years of floating chamber fluxes from three small, shallow subarctic lakes (2010–2017, n = 1306) with fluxes computed using 9 years of surface water concentration measurements (2009–2017, n = 606) and a small-eddy surface renewal model informed by in situ meteorological observations. Chamber fluxes averaged 6.9 ± 0.3 mg m−2 d−1 and gas transfer velocities (k600) from the chamber-calibrated surface renewal model averaged 4.0 ± 0.1 cm h−1. We find robust (R2 ≥ 0.93, p < 0.01) Arrhenius-type temperature functions of the CH4 flux (Ea' = 0.90 ± 0.14 eV) and of the surface CH4 concentration (Ea' = 0.88 ± 0.09 eV). Chamber derived gas transfer velocities tracked the power-law wind speed relation of the model (k ∝ u3/4). While the flux increased with wind speed, during storm events (U10 ≥ 6.5 m s−1) emissions were reduced by rapid water column degassing. Spectral analysis revealed that on timescales shorter than a month emissions were driven by wind shear, but on longer timescales variations in water temperature governed the flux, suggesting emissions were strongly coupled to production. Our findings suggest that accurate short- and long term projections of lake CH4 emissions can be based on distinct weather- and climate controlled drivers of the flux.

Lake emissions of the climate forcing trace gas methane (CH4) are spatiotemporally variable, but biases in flux measurements arising from undersampling are poorly quantified. We use a multiyear data set (2009-2017) of ice-free CH(4)emissions from three subarctic lakes obtained with bubble traps (n = 14,677), floating chambers (n = 1,306), and surface concentrations plus a gas transfer model (n = 535) to quantify these biases and evaluate corrections. Sampling primarily in warmer summer months, as is common, overestimates the ice-free season flux by a factor 1.4-1.8. Temperature proxies based on Arrhenius functions that closely fit measured fluxes (R-2 >= 0.93) enable gap filling the colder months of the ice-free season and reduce sampling bias. Ebullition (activation energy 1.36 eV) expressed greater temperature sensitivity than diffusion (1.00 eV). Resolving seasonal and interannual variability in fluxes with proxies requires similar to 135 sampling days for ebullition, and 22 and 14 days for diffusion via models and chambers, respectively.

Ecosystems exchange climate-relevant trace gases with the atmosphere, including volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are a small but highly reactive part of the carbon cycle. VOCs have important ecological functions and implications for atmospheric chemistry and climate. We measured the ecosystem-level surface-atmosphere VOC fluxes using the eddy covariance technique at a shallow subarctic lake and an adjacent graminoid-dominated fen in northern Sweden during two contrasting periods: the peak growing season (mid-July) and the senescent period post-growing season (September-October). In July, the fen was a net source of methanol, acetaldehyde, acetone, dimethyl sulfide, isoprene, and monoterpenes. All of these VOCs showed a did cycle of emission with maxima around noon and isoprene dominated the fluxes (93 +/- 22 mu mol m(-2) d(-1), mean +/- SE). Isoprene emission was strongly stimulated by temperature and presented a steeper response to temperature (Q(10) = 14.5) than that typically assumed in biogenic emission models, supporting the high temperature sensitivity of arctic vegetation. In September, net emissions of methanol and isoprene were drastically reduced, while acetaldehyde and acetone were deposited to the fen, with rates of up to -6.7 +/- 2.8 mu mol m(-2) d(-1) for acetaldehyde. Remarkably, the lake was a sink for acetaldehyde and acetone during both periods, with average fluxes up to -19 +/- 1.3 mu mol m(-2) d(-1) of acetone in July and up to -8.5 +/- 2.3 mu mol m(-2) d(-1) of acetaldehyde in September. The deposition of both carbonyl compounds correlated with their atmospheric mixing ratios, with deposition velocities of -0.23 +/- 0.01 and -0.68 +/- 0.03 cm s(-1) for acetone and acetaldehyde, respectively. Even though these VOC fluxes represented less than 0.5 % and less than 5 % of the CO2 and CH4 net carbon ecosystem exchange, respectively, VOCs alter the oxidation capacity of the atmosphere. Thus, understanding the response of their emissions to climate change is important for accurate prediction of the future climatic conditions in this rapidly warming area of the planet.

Northern lakes are important sources of the climate forcing trace gases methane (CH₄) and carbon dioxide (CO₂). A substantial portion of lakes' annual emissions can take place immediately after ice melt in spring. The drivers of these fluxes are neither well constrained nor fully understood. We present a detailed carbon gas budget for three subarctic lakes, using 6 years of eddy covariance and 9 years of manual flux measurements. We combine measurements of temperature, dissolved oxygen, and CH₄ stable isotopologues to quantify functional relationships between carbon gas production and conversion, energy inputs, and the redox regime. Spring emissions were regulated by the availability of oxygen in winter, rather than temperature as during ice‐free conditions. Under‐ice storage increased predictably with ice‐cover duration, and CH4 accumulation rates (25 ± 2 mg CH₄‐C·m⁻²·day⁻¹) exceeded summer emissions (19 ± 1 mg CH₄‐C·m⁻²·day⁻¹). The seasonally ice‐covered lakes emitted 26–59% of the annual CH₄ flux and 15–30% of the annual CO₂ flux at ice‐off. Reduced spring emissions were associated with winter snowmelt events, which can transport water downstream and oxygenate the water column. Stable isotopes indicate that 64–96% of accumulated CH₄ escaped oxidation, implying that a considerable portion of the dissolved gases produced over winter may evade to the atmosphere.

The Arctic Ocean, especially the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS), has been proposed as a significant source of methane that might play an increasingly important role in the future. However, the underlying processes of formation, removal and transport associated with such emissions are to date strongly debated. CH₄ concentration and triple isotope composition were analyzed on gas extracted from sediment and water sampled at numerous locations on the shallow ESAS from 2007 to 2013. We find high concentrations (up to 500 µM) of CH₄ in the pore water of the partially thawed subsea permafrost of this region. For all sediment cores, both hydrogen and carbon isotope data reveal the predominant occurrence of CH₄ that is not of thermogenic origin as it has long been thought, but resultant from microbial CH₄ formation. At some locations, meltwater from buried meteoric ice and/or old organic matter preserved in the subsea permafrost were used as sub-strates. Radiocarbon data demonstrate that the CH₄ present in the ESAS sediment is of Pleistocene age or older, but a small contribution of highly C-14-enriched CH₄, from unknown origin, prohibits precise age determination for one sediment core and in the water column. Our sediment data suggest that at locations where bubble plumes have been observed, CH₄ can escape anaerobic oxidation in the surface sediment.