Resource detail

Climate change may cause the levels of greenhouse gases emitted by freshwater northern lakes to increase by between 1.5 and 2.7 times, according to a study. Researchers from the University of Cambridge in the UK noted that every drop of fresh water contains thousands of different organic molecules that have previously gone unnoticed. Small shallow lakes dominate the world’s freshwater area, and the sediments within them already produce at least one-quarter of all carbon-dioxide, and more than two-thirds of all methane released from lakes into our atmosphere, they said.