title: Hydro-climatic forcing of dissolved organic carbon in two boreal lakes of Canada.
abstract: The boreal forest of the northern hemisphere represents one of the world's largest ecozones and contains nearly one third of the world's intact forests and terrestrially stored carbon. Long-term variations in temperature and precipitation have been implied in altering carbon cycling in forest soils, including increased fluxes to receiving waters. In this study, we use a simple hydrologic model and a 40-year dataset (1971-2010) of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) from two pristine boreal lakes (ELA, Canada) to examine the interactions between precipitation and landscape-scale controls of DOC production and export from forest catchments to surface waters. Our results indicate that a simplified hydrologically-based conceptual model can enable the long-term temporal patterns of DOC fluxes to be captured within boreal landscapes. Reconstructed DOC exports from forested catchments in the period 1901-2012 follow largely a sinusoidal pattern, with a period of about 37years and are tightly linked to multi-decadal patterns of precipitation. By combining our model with long-term precipitation estimates, we found no evidence of increasing DOC transport or in-lake concentrations through the 20th century.
authors.affiliation: Met European Research Observatory, 82100 Benevento, Italy; Department of Science and Technology, University of Sannio, via Port'Arsa 11, 82100 Benevento, Italy.
authors.forename: Nazzareno
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Diodato
authors.affiliation: IISD - Experimental Lakes Area Inc., 111 Lombard Ave., Winnipeg R3B 0T4, MB, Canada.
authors.forename: Scott
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Higgins
authors.affiliation: Met European Research Observatory, 82100 Benevento, Italy; UREP, INRA, 63000 Clermont-Ferrand, France. Electronic address: giannibellocchi@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Gianni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bellocchi
authors.affiliation: Department of Science and Technology, University of Sannio, via Port'Arsa 11, 82100 Benevento, Italy.
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Fiorillo
authors.affiliation: Department of Agricultural Sciences, AFBE Division, University of Napoli Federico II - Via Università 100, Portici, (Naples), Italy.
authors.forename: Nunzio
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Romano
authors.affiliation: Department of Science and Theconology, University of Sannio, 82100 Benevento, Italy.
authors.forename: Francesco M
authors.initials: FM
authors.lastname: Guadagno
keywords: Dissolved organic carbon; Hydro-climatic forcing; Parsimonious model; Reconstructed series