Deciduous trees are a large and overlooked sink for snowmelt water in the boreal forest.

The terrestrial water cycle contains large uncertainties that impact our understanding of water budgets and climate dynamics. Water storage is a key uncertainty in the boreal water budget, with tree water storage often ignored. The goal of this study is to quantify tree water content during the snowmelt and growing season periods for Alaskan and western Canadian boreal forests. Deciduous trees reached saturation between snowmelt and leaf-out, taking up 21-25% of the available snowmelt water, while coniferous trees removed <1%. We found that deciduous trees removed 17.8-20.9 billion m(3) of snowmelt water, which is equivalent to 8.7-10.2% of the Yukon River's annual discharge. Deciduous trees transpired 2-12% (0.4-2.2 billion m(3)) of the absorbed snowmelt water immediately after leaf-out, increasing favorable conditions for atmospheric convection, and an additional 10-30% (2.0-5.2 billion m(3)) between leaf-out and mid-summer. By 2100, boreal deciduous tree area is expected to increase by 1-15%, potentially resulting in an additional 0.3-3 billion m(3) of snowmelt water removed from the soil per year. This study is the first to show that deciduous tree water uptake of snowmelt water represents a large but overlooked aspect of the water balance in boreal watersheds.

Hotspot detection and spatial distribution of methane emissions from landfills by a surface probe method.

A surface probe method previously developed was used to detect hotspots and to determine spatial variation of methane (CH4) emissions from three landfills located in Mexico, with an intermediate or a final cover, as well as with or without a landfill gas collection system. The method was effective in the three landfills and allowed mapping of CH4 emissions with a resolution of 24-64 measurements per hectare, as well as the detection and quantification of hotspots, with a moderate experimental effort. In the three selected landfills, CH4 emissions were quantified to 10, 72, and 575gm(-2)d(-1). Two straightforward parameters describing the spatial distribution of CH4 emissions were also developed. The first parameter provides the percentage of area responsible for a given percentage of total emissions, while the second parameter assigns a numerical value to flux homogeneity. Together, the emissions map and the spatial distribution parameters offer an appropriate tool to landfill operators willing to begin recovering CH4 emissions or to improve the effectiveness of an existing recovery system. This method may therefore help to reduce the greenhouse gas footprint of landfills, which are still the primary option for waste management in developing countries.