Limnology Oceanography - 2017 - Almeida - Extreme Floods Increase CO2 Outgassing From a Large Amazonian River

LIMNOLOGY
and
OCEANOGRAPHY Limnol. Oceanogr. 62, 2017, 989–999
C 2017 Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography
V
doi: 10.1002/lno.10480
Extreme floods increase CO2 outgassing from a large Amazonian river

Rafael M. Almeida,1,2* Felipe S. Pacheco,3 Nathan Barros,1 Emma Rosi,2 Fa
bio Roland1
1
Laboratory of Aquatic Ecology, Department of Biology, Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais, Brazil
2
Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, New York, USA
3
~o Jose dos Campos, Sa
National Institute for Space Research, Sa ~o Paulo, Brazil
Abstract
Large Amazonian rivers are characteristically subject to seasonal floods. We examine how inundation
extent affects the partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2) and CO2 outgassing in the Madeira River, a large
tributary to the Amazon River. We show data from nine field campaigns performed between 2009 and 2011,
complemented with data from one additional campaign in April 2014 that is representative of the largest
flood on record. Both the pCO2 (range, 835–9694 latm) and CO2 outgassing (range, 641–12,253 mg C m22
d21) had large seasonal variability (with peaks during high water), and fit exponential relationships with
water level. CO2 outgassing per unit area in 2014 was 50% higher than the other highest rate in our dataset.
Reconstruction of CO2 fluxes since 1968 indicates that extreme-flood years outgas 20% more CO2 per unit
area than years without reported occurrence of extreme floods. Our findings indicate a positive feedback
between climate change, extreme flooding, and CO2 outgassing from river water.
Amazonian rivers and streams play a large role in the occurs at higher water levels (Devol et al. 1995; Richey et al.
global freshwater carbon cycle (Richey et al. 1990, 2002; 2002; Rasera et al. 2013), but it is not clear how CO2 has
Raymond et al. 2013; Melack 2016), with a total carbon been responding to the increased frequency of large floods
dioxide (CO2) outgassing estimated as 200 Tg C yr21 (Mel- (Marengo et al. 2012, 2013). There is evidence that extreme
ack 2016). This is equivalent to 10–13% of total CO2 outgas- climatic events can affect the Amazon carbon cycle at a
sing from rivers and streams globally (Raymond et al. 2013). whole-basin scale (Davidson et al. 2012; Melack and Coe
The main source for such a large CO2 evasion is CO2 and 2012; Van der Laan-Luijkx et al. 2015). However, with a few
organic matter derived from upland sources and fringing exceptions (e.g., Melack and Coe 2012), existing studies are
floodplains (Mayorga et al. 2005; Johnson et al. 2008; Ward forest-centric and do not encompass freshwater systems. In
et al. 2013; Abril et al. 2014). In particular, fringing flood- particular, one question that is unanswered is whether super-
plains are likely to play a key role in sustaining CO2 outgas- saturation of CO2 in river water remains the same or is
sing from waters of the central Amazon (Abril et al. 2014). enhanced during an exceptional flood in comparison to a
The large amounts of carbon that enter river waters from normal flood.
fringing floodplains can be transported as dissolved CO2 for Rainfall trends indicate an increased amount of precipita-
hundreds of kilometers downstream before being emitted tion over the Amazon basin since the beginning of the
(Abril et al. 2014). In floodplain and river waters, CO2 out- 1990s (Gloor et al. 2013). This is true for the Madeira River
gassing is typically associated with peaks in the hydrograph basin, the largest sub-basin of the Amazon. An analysis of
(Devol et al. 1995; Richey et al. 2002; Abril et al. 2014). flow duration curves indicates that nine extreme floods
The role of floods in increasing aquatic CO2 concentra- occurred in the Madeira River between 1968 and 2012
tions due to the input of plant litter, soil CO2, and terrestrial (Marengo et al. 2013). In the Madeira River basin, years with
organic carbon has been recognized for a range of ecosys- extraordinary amount of rainfall are usually associated with
tems worldwide (Yao et al. 2007; Raymond and Saiers 2010; La Nin~ a events or warmer than normal sea surface tempera-
Bianchi et al. 2013; Ruiz-Halpern et al. 2015). In rivers of the tures in the tropical South Atlantic, and they are often
Amazon basin, it is known that higher CO2 outgassing accompanied by extreme floods (Espinoza et al. 2013). In
2014, however, warm conditions in the western Pacific-
Indian Ocean and abnormally warm waters in the Subtropi-
*Correspondence: rafaelmarquesjf@yahoo.com.br cal South Atlantic led to 80–100% more rainfall in the
Additional Supporting Information may be found in the online version Madeira River basin (Espinoza et al. 2014). This resulted in
of this article. the largest flood on record; peak discharge at Porto Velho
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Almeida et al. Extreme floods increase CO2 outgassing
(1000 km upstream of the mouth) in February 2014 was dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) (Raymond et al 1997; Wey-
74% higher than the average February discharge between henmeyer et al. 2012; Åberg and Wallin 2014). Unfiltered
1970 and 2013 (Espinoza et al. 2014). This study aims to water samples were collected near surface and kept refrigerat-
understand the effects of extreme floods on CO2 outgassing ed in the dark at 48C until analysis. The analyses were per-
from the Madeira River. We use temporally resolved data, formed within a week after completion of each field
including results from the extreme flood in 2014. In addi- campaign. DIC concentrations were determined on a
tion, we reconstruct CO2 outgassing from the Madeira River Tekmar-Dohrmann TC analyzer (model Phoenix 8000). We
since 1968 to demonstrate how extreme floods affect annual calculated CO2 concentration from DIC, concentration of
CO2 evasion rates. hydrogen ion [H1] and the equilibrium constants of the CO2
system at 258C (Stumm and Morgan 1996). pCO2 was deter-
Methods mined through CO2 concentration, atmospheric pressure,
Site description and the temperature-adjusted Henry’s constant (Stumm and
Originating in the Bolivian and Peruvian Andes, the Morgan 1996). A detailed description of the calculation pro-
Madeira River is the largest tributary to the Amazon, contrib- cess of both CO2 concentrations and pCO2 is presented in
uting 15, 14, and 50% of the Amazon River’s water, organic Weyhenmeyer et al. (2012). CO2 concentrations were used
carbon, and suspended sediments transport, respectively to calculate CO2 fluxes according to the following equation:
(Moreira-Turcq et al. 2003; Latrubesse et al. 2005). The basin
F 5 k 3 CO2aq 2 CO2sat (1)
area spans over about 1,400,000 km2 (Fig. 1), and the cli-
mate is humid tropical, with mean annual precipitation of where F denotes the CO2 flux (mg C m22 d21), k is the gas
about 2000 mm (Moreira-Turcq et al. 2003). This high annu- transfer velocity (m d21), CO2aq is the concentration of CO2
al precipitation is unevenly distributed across the year (Villar in the water (mg m23) and CO2sat is the saturation concen-
et al. 2009), so that discharges in the Madeira River can vary
tration (mg m23). CO2sat was calculated based on Henry’s
by one order of magnitude between low and high waters,
constants and the atmospheric pCO2 (390 latm, measured at
averaging 19,000 m3 s21 at Porto Velho (Almeida et al. 2015)
Porto Velho with an infrared gas analyzer; unpublished data
and 31,000 m3 s21 at the mouth (Moreira-Turcq et al. 2003).
from Pacheco, F.). First, we calculated k600, which is k nor-
The Bolivian plain, after the headwater tributaries exit the
malized to a Schmidt number of 600 that corresponds to the
Andes, is characterized by the occurrence of large wetlands.
CO2 at 208C (Jahne et al. 1987). In rivers with large channels
The largest of these wetlands is the Llanos de Moxos, a
such as the Madeira, wind is a strong regulator of k600 (Alin
150,000 km2 savanna floodplain (Hamilton et al. 2004). In
et al. 2011; Rasera et al. 2013). We calculated k600 utilizing a
total, about one-fourth of Amazonian wetlands lie within
wind-based model proposed for large rivers by Alin et al.
the Madeira River basin (Melack and Hess 2010). The Madei-
(2011). This model has been recently used to compute gas
ra River flows into the Amazon River in the central Amazon,
fluxes in large Amazonian rivers, including the Madeira River
downstream of the municipality of Manaus, Brazil (Fig. 1).
(Ellis et al. 2012; Barbosa et al. 2016; Scofield et al. 2016).
Daily measurements of the Madeira River’s water level
The model proposed by Alin et al. estimates k600 (in cm h21)
and discharge since 1968 were obtained from the Porto
as follows:
Velho gaging station (code 15400000), available at the web-
site of the Brazilian National Water Agency (ANA) (http:// k600 54:4617:11 3 U10 (2)
hidroweb.ana.gov.br/). The raw data obtained from ANA was
transformed from centimeters to meters and then summed where U10 is the wind speed (m s21) at 10 m above surface.
by the altitude above sea level at the base of the ruler Hourly wind speed data measured 10 m above surface from
(43.5 m). the Porto Velho meterorological station (088450 S 638280 W,
95 m a.sl.), the closest available weather station, were pro-
Sampling, analyses, and calculations vided by the Brazilian Institute of Meteorology (INMET). The
We show data from nine field campaigns performed
average k600 was 11.6 6 1.0 cm h21 (Supporting Information
between 2009 and 2011, complemented with data from one
Table S1).
additional campaign in April 2014 that is representative of
We then calculated k, corrected for river water tempera-
the largest flood on record in the Madeira River basin (1968–
ture, using the following equation:
present), both in terms of discharge and water level. Samples

were taken from near surface (0.5 m) of six stations in the Sc 20:5
k5k600 (3)
main channel of the Madeira River, in a 100-km reach with- 600
in the municipality of Porto Velho, Brazil, about 1000 km
upstream of the confluence with the Amazon River. where Sc is the Schmidt number of CO2 at a given tempera-
We estimated CO2 concentrations and the partial pressure ture (Wanninkhof 1992). River water temperature was mea-
of CO2 (pCO2) from concomitant measurements of pH and sured at the time of sampling.
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Fig. 1. (a) Representation of the Amazon basin (light grey), highlighting the Madeira River basin (dark grey) with the mainstream (thicker white line)
and its major Andean tributaries; the dark grey square shows the study area. The black area represents the extent of wetlands in the Amazon basin
mapped during the high water phase, as described in Hess et al. (2015). The large wetland between the rivers Beni and Mamore is known as Llanos
de Moxos. (b) Detail of the study area, with grey circles representing the sampling stations. The whole study stretch is within Porto Velho municipali-
ty, and the urban area is highlighted in the light grey square.
The wind-based model that we utilized to estimate k600 and discharge are correlated with this variability (Fig. 2a,b).
does not incorporate important additional predictors, such The best fitted models for the relationship with pCO2 were
as water velocity, depth, and discharge, because these varia- an exponential curve for water level (r2 5 0.96, p < 0.05; Fig.
bles were not sampled extensively enough by Alin et al. 2a) and a linear curve for discharge (r2 5 0.93; p < 0.05; Fig.
(2011) to allow a multiple linear regression including wind 2b). The association of pCO2 with the hydrograph has been
speed and water velocity. We explored how our results demonstrated elsewhere (Devol et al. 1995; Rasera et al.
would change if we used a water velocity-based model of rea- 2013; Richey et al. 2013), but an exponential model for the
eration. We computed k600 using Eq. 5 from Table 2 in Ray- relationship between pCO2 and water level has not been
mond et al. (2012). Water velocity data, measured with demonstrated previously.
acoustic Doppler current profiler, were downloaded from the Our pCO2 results are in good agreement with previous
ORE-HYBAM station at Porto Velho (http://www.ore-hybam. studies in terms of seasonality and range of values. In a
org). The average k600 calculated via the water velocity-based synthesis of the studies of CO2 concentrations in Amazo-
model was 9.0 6 0.2 cm h21, with negligible seasonal nian freshwaters, Melack (2016) report pCO2 values rang-
variation. ing from 259 latm to 20,000 latm in Amazonian large
river systems, with the seasonal trend tracking the hydro-
graph. Reported pCO2 values near the mouth of the Madei-
Results and discussion ra River range from 1239–4250 latm (Abril et al. 2014) and
Partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) and CO2 outgassing 2130–5087 latm (Richey et al. 2002). That the maximum
We did not find a statistical difference in pCO2 values pCO2 values near the mouth (4250–5087 latm) are lower
among the six sampling stations (Kruskal-Wallis test, than those that we report here (9694 latm) is not unex-
H 5 1.046, df 5 5, p 5 0.96). Results from these stations are pected. Our measurements were made 1000 km upstream
presented as average 6 standard deviation. The Madeira River the mouth, and Amazonian rivers typically outgas CO2
is supersaturated in CO2 throughout the year (Table 1; Fig. downriver (Abril et al. 2014). In the Solimo ~ es River, for
2). There was substantial variation through the phases of the instance, pCO2 decreases by as much as three-fold as one
flooding cycle, with peaks at high waters (Table 1). There moves 1000 km downriver from upstream of the conflu-
was considerable variation even within phases, with pCO2 ence with the Negro River to the confluence with the
varying by up to a factor of 2 within the same flooding Tapajo s River (Abril et al. 2014). To our knowledge, there is
phase in different years (Table 1). Variation in water level only one reported pCO2 for the Madeira River at Porto
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Velho (1110 latm, Alin et al. 2011), which is representative Large seasonal variability, peaks at higher water levels,
of the low water phase and it is close to our average low and association with water level and discharge were observed
water-phase pCO2 (1248 latm). for CO2 outgassing (Table 1; Fig. 2c,d). Our range of CO2
evasion rates (641–12,253 mg C m22 d21) falls within the
Table 1. Variation of pCO2 (latm), CO2 outgassing (“F-CO2,” range of CO2 fluxes reported for Amazonian rivers. In a syn-
mg C m22 d21) and water level (“WL,” meters) through the
thesis of published rates, Melack (2016) reports that CO2
four phases of the flooding cycle in the Madeira River. More
fluxes vary from an influx of 830 mg C m22 d21 to the efflux
information is shown in Supporting Information Table S1.
of 15,860 mg C m22 d21. Our receding-water evasion rates
Minimum Maximum (average 3224 mg C m22 d21) are similar to the receding-
water phase outgassing measured at the mouth of the Madei-
Flooding phase pCO2 F-CO2 WL pCO2 F-CO2 WL ra River (2167 mg C m22 d21, Ellis et al. 2012). With the
Low water 835 641 45.2 1544 1686 47.3 exception of 2014s extreme flood (11,253 mg C m22 d21),
Rising water 2805 3283 52.1 3957 4813 54.9 our high-water stage outgassing (average 6216 mg C m22
High water 4301 4962 56.8 9694 12,553 63.2 d21) are similar to high-water stage outgassing reported for
Receding water 1758 1859 48.3 4119 6223 54.7 the Solimo~ es River (7154 mg C m22 d21, Rasera et al. 2013).
In the 2014 flood, the areal evasion rate of CO2 in the
Fig. 2. (a) Water level vs. pCO2, (b) discharge vs. pCO2, (c) water level vs. CO2 outgassing, and (d) discharge vs. CO2 outgassing. Each data point
represents the average of quarterly measurements made at six sampling sites in the Madeira River at Porto Velho between 2009 and 2011, comple-
mented with measurements made during the peak of the 2014 extreme flood (water level 5 63.2 m; discharge 5 58.2 dam3 s21). The error bars repre-
sent the standard deviation, and the dashed grey lines delimit the 95% confidence bands. All relationships are statistically significant (p < 0.05).
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Madeira River was almost 50% higher than the second high-
est rate in our dataset.
Our modeled k600 values (11.6 6 1.0 cm h21) were quite
close to the measured k600 of the Madeira River at Porto
Velho during the low water phase (9.7 cm h21, Alin et al.
2011), as well as to recent reports of k600 for other large
Amazonian rivers (Alin et al. 2011; Kemenes et al. 2011;
Rasera et al. 2013; Scofield et al. 2016). Our modeled k val-
ues do not incorporate the influence of increased water
velocities, which may be particularly significant during
extreme flood events. For instance, Rasera et al. (2013) have
suggested that increased water velocity during high-water
phases may lead to higher k600. Raymond et al. (2012) pro-
pose some models to estimate k600 from water velocity and
river slope, but their models were derived from temperate
small streams; in large tropical rivers such as the Madeira,
wind speed has been reported as a strong predictor of k600
(Alin et al. 2011; Rasera et al. 2013). Although the use of
available water velocity-based models has limitations, we
assessed how utilizing a water velocity-based model would
have influenced our computation of CO2 outgassing, and
Fig. 3. Comparison of the relationship between CO2 outgassing and
further the relationship that we encountered between CO2
water level on the basis of different approaches to calculate gas transfer
outgassing and water level. The average k600 computed velocity (k). The black data points were calculated from a wind-based k
from water velocity was 9.0 6 0.2 cm h21. CO2 outgassing (same as in Fig. 2c), whereas the grey data points were calculated from
rates calculated from water velocity-based k600 values (aver- a water velocity-based k.
age, 3373 6 2782 mg C m22 d21; range, 445–9323 mg C
m22 d21) were not significantly different (Mann–Whitney
water level is 2–3 times higher during falling stages than dur-
rank sum test, W 5 1206, p 5 0.07) from those calculated
ing rising stages at a same discharge (Meade et al. 1991). This
with wind speed-based k600 values (average 4137 6 3248 mg
is due to a two-month time lag between the peak discharges
C m22 d21; range 590–11,116 mg C m22 d21). While there
of the Madeira and Amazon rivers (Meade et al. 1991). The
is uncertainty in our understanding of the k values in the
reported lag in peak discharge is identical to the time lag in
Madeira River, the exponential character of the relationship
peak pCO2 (Fig. 4a), as confirmed by the hydrographs (Fig.
was maintained regardless of the k computation approach
4b). Therefore, both water level and pCO2 near the mouth
used (Fig. 3).
mirror the variation in the Amazon River (Fig. 4a,b), and are
Validation of the encountered patterns and relationships not necessarily linked to the variation upstream.
We compared the annual variation in pCO2 near the Similarly, the lower amplitude in pCO2 annual variation
mouth (Richey et al. 2002; Abril et al. 2014) and at Porto near the mouth is attributable to the backwater effect.
Velho (this study), about 1000 km upstream the mouth (Fig. Because peak discharges of the northern and southern
4a). The peak of CO2-supersaturation at Porto Velho is tributaries of the Amazon River have different timings, the
higher than at the mouth, probably because there is gradual discharge of the Amazon River varies by a factor of 3,
CO2 degassing downstream (Abril et al. 2014). In contrast, whereas its tributaries vary their discharge by a factor of 10
the minimum at Porto Velho is lower. Because of this lower (Meade et al. 1991). As the water level near the mouth is
annual amplitude, there is a larger CO2 supersaturation near higher during receding and low waters in comparison to
the mouth than upstream when averaging throughout the upstream portions, the connectivity with fringing wetlands
year (3575 latm against 3060 latm). In addition, there is a is retained, which may maintain input of carbon from
two-month time lag between the peak at Porto Velho and floodable areas.
the observed peak at the mouth (Fig. 4a), which cannot be Finally, to examine further the exponential increase
explained by the water travel time (less than 15 d). shown in Fig. 2a, we plotted pCO2 data from previous work
To understand the time lag between pCO2 peak near the against water level (Fig. 5). The relationship between pCO2
mouth and 1000 km upstream, it is important to consider and water level was exponential rather than linear using
that the Madeira River is subject to a backwater effect caused datasets with seasonal coverage near the mouth (Richey
by the Amazon River. Hydrological data collected 260 km et al. 2002; Abril et al. 2014), suggesting that the pattern
upstream the mouth of the Madeira River indicate that the that we found at Porto Velho is repeated at the mouth.
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point, increases in water level are caused by a proportionally

larger increase in discharge (Fig. 6). Therefore, it is expected
that each unit increase in water level results in a considerably
larger increase in flooded area. This relationship between water
level and flooded area has been observed in the Llanos de
Moxos (Hamilton et al. 2004; Ovando et al. 2016), a large wet-
land within the Madeira basin (Fig. 1). The disproportionate
increase in the lateral inundated area during floods likely
results in the input of inorganic and organic carbon from flood-
able areas (Ruiz-Halpern et al. 2015), which is corroborated by
the fact that there is substantial organic carbon enrichment as
the Madeira tributaries exit the Andes and enter the Llanos de
Moxos (Guyot and Wasson 1994). Connectivity with flood-
plains also affects CO2 seasonal dynamics in other river basins
(Teodoru et al. 2015), and it explains differences in CO2 from
one catchment to another (Borges et al. 2015a,b).
Although our findings reinforce the floodplain source
hypothesis, our dataset does not allow us to define the origin
of the CO2 that is being emitted by the Madeira River.
Water-column respiration and CO2 outgassing from Amazo-
nian rivers are supported by multiple sources (Melack 2016).
In some Amazonian whitewater rivers, about 60% of CO2
outgassing has been attributed to water-column respiration
(Ellis et al. 2012), which is fueled by carbon derived from C4
floodplain grasses (Quay et al. 1992). However, these
sediment-laden rivers also respire phytoplankton-derived car-
bon (Ellis et al. 2012), especially because algal biomass pro-
duced in adjacent floodplain lakes drains into the river
channel. In addition, a recent study demonstrates that mac-
romolecules formerly considered to be refractory are intense-
ly mineralized within river channels (Ward et al. 2013), and
even aged carbon from sedimentary rock and carbonate
Fig. 4. (a) Seasonal variation of pCO2 in the Madeira River (near
weathering can sustain a portion of CO2 evasion (Vihermaa
mouth and at Porto Velho, about 1000 km upstream the mouth) and in
the Amazon River (near the confluence with the Madeira River). To help et al. 2014). Finally, dissolved CO2 from plant roots and
interpret the results, the water level variation at these three locations is microbial respiration can be laterally exported to river chan-
displayed in (b). pCO2 data from the Madeira River near mouth and nels (Richey et al. 2002). The magnitude of the contribution
from the Amazon River were taken from Richey et al. (2002) and Abril of each of these potential sources is temporally and spatially
et al. (2014). Monthly values for the Madeira River at Porto Velho were
reconstructed utilizing the equation of Fig. 2a on the basis of monthly
variable (Ellis et al. 2012).
average of water level between 1968–2014. Water level data were Reconstruction of CO2 outgassing
downloaded from the Brazilian National Water Agency (ANA) website.
Based on the relationship between CO2 and water level,
we reconstructed CO2 outgassing from the Madeira River
Adjoining floodplains sustaining CO2 outgassing using daily water level measurements since 1968 (Fig. 7b).
We observed an exponential relationship between CO2 Between 1968 and 2014, the average annual CO2 outgassing
outgassing and water level caused by increased CO2 concen- from the Madeira River at Porto Velho was 15.2 6 2.1 Mg C
tration in the water during high-water stages (Fig. 2). High ha21 yr21. This is higher than the estimated flux over
CO2 concentrations in the main channel of Amazonian riv- flooded areas of the central Amazon basin (8.3 6 2.4 Mg C
ers during floods have been attributed to increased input of ha21 yr21; Richey et al. 2002), but it has been suggested that
labile carbon from fringing floodplains, as well as lateral Richey et al.’s estimate is likely underestimated because they
export of CO2 derived from plant root and microbial respira- used a conservative k for primary tributaries (Alin et al.
tion (Rasera et al. 2013; Abril et al. 2014). The relationship 2011; Rasera et al. 2013; Melack 2016).
between pCO2 and water level presented here reinforces the The annual CO2 evasion rates were significantly higher
floodplain source hypothesis. The shape of the relationship (Student’s t-test, p < 0.05) in years with reported occurrence
between water level and discharge indicates that, after a certain of extreme floods (17.6 6 2.0 Mg C ha21 yr21) than in years
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Fig. 5. Relationship between water level and pCO2 at the mouth of the Madeira River based on pCO2 data taken from (a) Richey et al. (2002) and
(b) Abril et al. (2014). Water level data was downloaded from Brazil’s National Water Agency (ANA) website (station 15940000 at Nova Olinda do
Norte, near the mouth), and averaged for each month of the year. Water level is presented raw, as we did not have access to the altitude above sea
level at the base of the ruler. All relationships are statistically significant (p < 0.05).
with normal floods (14.5 6 1.5 Mg C ha21 yr21), with 20%

more evasion in extreme-flood years. In 2014, when the larg-
est flood on record occurred, the annual rate of CO2 outgas-
sing was 45% higher than the average since 1968. Within
our reconstructed dataset, six years displayed areal CO2 out-
gassing at least one standard deviation above the mean
between 1968 and 2014, five of which were characterized as
extreme-flood years in the Madeira River (Marengo et al.
2013). By contrast, five years had areal CO2 outgassing at
least one standard deviation below the mean. Four of these
years were between 1968–1971, and this period was charac-
terized by low rainfall in the Madeira River basin (Ronchail
et al. 2005). The other year, 2005, was characterized by a
record-breaking drought in the Amazon basin (Marengo
et al. 2008). Hence, atypically dry years have the opposite
behavior of extreme floods and tend to reduce CO2 outgas-
sing from water.
It is important to consider that the inundated area
increases significantly during extreme floods, so that not
only areal CO2 fluxes increase, but also total fluxes. For
instance, assuming that during extreme floods the entire
area subject to inundation in the Madeira River basin is
flooded (210,100 km2; Melack and Hess 2010), and extrapo-
Fig. 6. Relationship between discharge and water level in the Madeira lating the extreme-flood CO2 outgassing measured at Porto
River based on data measured during our sampling dates. The grey Velho to the whole basin, about 2300 Gg C d21 are emitted
dashed lines delimit the 95% confidence band. during the peak of an extreme flood. Applying the same
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Fig. 7. (a) Madeira River’s annual maximum water level at Porto Velho between 1968–2014. A slight increasing trend can be observed
(y 5 1.3821 1 0.0288x, r2 5 0.11, p < 0.05). (b) Annual CO2 outgassing from the Madeira River at Porto Velho (dotted black line) reconstructed based
on the equation of Fig. 2c. Daily water level measurements since 1968 were downloaded from the website of the Brazilian National Water Agency
(ANA). The arrows indicate extreme-flood years in the Madeira River according to a flow duration analysis (Marengo et al. 2013) complemented with
the 2014 flood. Marengo et al. (2013) consider extreme-flood years those in which the maximum annual water level is greater than one standard
deviation above the average annual maximum level. The upper and lower dashed horizontal lines indicate one standard deviation above and below
the mean annual CO2 outgassing over the entire period, respectively.
procedure to low water—when 26% of the area subject to scales in the Amazon basin. This has also been shown to
inundation is flooded (Hess et al. 2003)—results in a daily occur in other watersheds of the world such as the Mississip-
basin-wide CO2 emission of 30 Gg C, or 80 times smaller. pi River basin (Bianchi et al. 2013). We suggest that the
This extrapolation is only for comparison purposes, as the recent trend of increased frequency of extreme floods in the
rates of CO2 efflux in forested floodplains and the parent riv- Amazon has been enhancing the transfer of carbon from
er are significantly different (Scofield et al. 2016). floodable areas to the atmosphere in the form of CO2. Cli-
mate models should include this positive feedback between
climate change, extreme flooding and aquatic CO2 fluxes in
Conclusion the Amazon basin.
Climate models project that both the frequency and inten-
sity of extreme rainfall events will increase in the western References
Amazon (Marengo et al. 2009). Our analysis suggests that Åberg, J., and M. B. Wallin. 2014. Evaluating a fast head-
water level has an increasing trend in the Madeira River (Fig. space method for measuring DIC and subsequent calcula-
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Acknowledgments Conflict of Interest

We thank Santo Anto ^ nio Energia for supporting this study; Ecology None declared.
and Environment do Brasil for supporting the field campaigns; A.
sio, A. Gripp, D. Carvalho, G. Boemer, J. Durval, L. Evaristo, M.
Culo Submitted 22 January 2016
Bezerra, M. Lima, and M. Mendonça for assistance in field and laborato- Revised 13 April 2016; 12 August 2016; 24 October 2016
ry work. FR is partially supported by CNPq (grants 307986/2010-1 and Accepted 25 October 2016
401384/2014-4). Additional support to FR and NB comes from the Euro-
pean Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Associate editor: John Melack
999

Limnology Oceanography - 2017 - Almeida - Extreme Floods Increase CO2 Outgassing From a Large Amazonian River

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LIMNOLOGY

Extreme floods increase CO2 outgassing from a large Amazonian river

point, increases in water level are caused by a proportionally

with normal floods (14.5 6 1.5 Mg C ha21 yr21), with 20%

Acknowledgments Conflict of Interest

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