Principal Investigator Harold Hemond
Methane is an important greenhouse gas whose natural source functions are poorly constrained, in part due to the high variability of emission that is associated with ebullition from aquatic sediments. A novel automated trap design from the Hemond lab has successfully measured ebullition fluxes with 5-minute spatial resolution for periods of months, and is low in cost, enabling many units to be deployed to capture spatial variability. Bubble fluxes from a temperate lake are shown to be a large part of the total methane budget, and their timing is highly associated with atmospheric pressure fluctuations as well as water level changes. Work is ongoing to understand the sediment processes responsible for observed emission behavior.