Changes of lake organic carbon sinks from closed basins since the Last Glacial Maximum and quantitative evaluation of human impacts

BACKGROUND: Closed basins occupy 21% of the world’s land area and can substantially affect global carbon budgets. Conventional understanding suggests that the terminal areas of closed basins collect water and carbon from throughout the entire basin, and changes in lake organic carbon sinks are indicative of basin-wide organic carbon storages. However, this hypothesis lacks regional and global validation. Here, we first validate the depositional process of organic carbon in a typical closed-basin region of northwest China using organic geochemical proxies of both soil and lake sediments. Then we estimate the organic carbon sinks and human impacts in extant closed-basin lakes since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). RESULTS: Results show that 80.56 Pg organic carbon is stored in extant closed-basin lakes mainly found in the northern mid-latitudes. Carbon accumulation rates vary from 17.54 g C m(−2) yr(−1) during modern times, 6.36 g C m(−2) yr(−1) during the mid-Holocene and 2.25 g C m(−2) yr(−1) during the LGM. Then, we evaluated the influence by human activities during the late Holocene (in the past three thousand years). The ratio of human impacts on lake organic carbon storage in above closed basins is estimated to be 22.79%, and human-induced soil organic carbon emissions in the past three thousand years amounted to 207 Pg. CONCLUSIONS: While the magnitude of carbon storage is not comparable to those in peatland, vegetation and soil, lake organic carbon sinks from closed basins are significant to long-term terrestrial carbon budget and contain information of climate change and human impact from the whole basins. These observations improve our understanding of carbon sinks in closed basins at various time scales, and provide a basis for the future mitigation policies to global climate change. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13021-021-00191-6.