Satellite Estimation of pCO2 and Quantification of CO2 Fluxes in China's Chagan Lake in the Context of Climate Change

The massive increase in the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, especially carbon dioxide (CO2), has had a significant impact on the global climate. Research has revealed that lakes play an important role in the global carbon cycle and that they can shift between the roles of carbon sources and sinks. This study used Landsat satellite images to analyze the spatiotemporal characteristics and factors influencing the CO2 changes in Chagan Lake in China. We conducted six water sampling campaigns at Chagan Lake in 2020-2021 and determined the partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO(2)) from 110 water samples. Landsat surface reflectance was matched with water sampling events within +/- 7 days of satellite overpasses, yielding 75 matched pairs. A regression analysis indicated strong associations between pCO(2) and both the band difference model of the near-infrared band and green band (Band 5-Band 3, R-2 = 0.83, RMSE = 27.55 mu atm) and the exponential model [((exp(b3) - exp(b5))(2)/(exp(b3) + exp(b5))(2), R-2 = 0.82, RMSE = 27.99 mu atm]. A comparison between the performances of a linear regression model and a machine learning model found that the XGBoost model had the highest fitting accuracy (R-2 = 0.94, RMSE = 16.86 mu atm). We used Landsat/OLI images acquired mainly in 2021 to map pCO(2) in Chagan Lake during the ice-free period. The pCO(2) in the surface water of Chagan Lake showed considerable spatiotemporal variability within a range of 0-200 mu atm. pCO(2) also showed significant seasonal variations, with the lowest and highest mean values in autumn (30-50 mu atm) and summer (120-150 mu atm), respectively. Spatially, the pCO(2) values in the southeast of Chagan Lake were higher than those in the northwest. The CO2 fluxes were calculated based on the pCO(2) and ranged from -3.69 to -2.42 mmol/m(2)/d, indicating that Chagan Lake was absorbing CO2 (i.e., it was a weak carbon sink). Temperature, chlorophyll a, total suspended matter, and turbidity were found to have reinforcing effects on the overall trend of pCO(2), while the Secchi disk depth was negatively correlated with pCO(2). The results of this study provide valuable insights for assessing the role of lakes in the carbon cycle in the context of climate change.