Global lake phytoplankton proliferation intensifies climate warming

In lakes, phytoplankton sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and store it in the form of biomass organic carbon (OC); however, only a small fraction of this OC remains buried, while the remaining part is recycled to the atmosphere as CO2 and methane (CH4). This has the potential effect of adding CO2-eq to the atmosphere and producing a warming effect due to the higher radiative forcing of CH4 relative to CO2. In this study, we used globally collected data to quantify the CO2-eq feedback capacity of phytoplankton in global lakes by analyzing CO2-eq budget throughout the life cycle of phytoplankton, assess this feedback at a global scale, and predict the extent of this response under future warming scenarios.