Water-atmosphere greenhouse gas exchange measurements using FTIR spectrometry

Abstract

In the context of climate change, rivers and estuaries have been increasingly studied in terms of carbon and nutrient cycling. A focus of recent research has been the greenhouse gas (GHG) production in and emission from these aquatic systems. Global estimates of riverine and estuarine evasion of GHGs usually suffer from a poor data coverage in the tropics. Southeast Asia, in particular, is considered a hotspot in the global carbon cycle, but few data exist on aquatic GHG emissions in this region. Southeast Asian rivers export large amounts of organic carbon to the ocean, due to both high rates of runoff and the presence of tropical peatlands. These carbon-rich soils are an important source of carbon to rivers, but the fate of this material remained unknown. This study investigated the relevance of rivers and estuaries in western Sarawak, Malaysia, as sources of GHGs to the atmosphere using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectrometry.