Peter A. Raymond

peter.raymond@yale.edu

Professor of Ecosystem Ecology

Program: FALSE

Links

CV Publications (Biblio)

Interests/Expertise

Climate Change and Climate Science

Ecology

Ecosystem Services

Natural Resource Management & Policy

Watershed Management and Coastal Systems

North America

Arctic

Education

B.S., Marist College

Ph.D., College of William and Mary/Virginia Institute of Marine Science

Research

My research focuses on how biology and watershed variables alter the carbon chemistry of streams, rivers and estuaries. Most of this work links into efforts worldwide to gain a better understanding of the carbon cycle due to the linkages between increased atmospheric CO2 and global change. This work entails coupling previously collected stream/river data with digitally available information on climate and land-use, field measurements at various space and time scales, and isotopic studies. Projects which probe the connections between carbon and water and nutrient cycles is an integral component of my research. The transport of riverine organic carbon (OC) to the world’s oceans is a globally significant flux, and connects the terrestrial and oceanic carbon cycles. The age of OC transported from rivers provides key information on the turnover time and recycling of both oceanic and terrestrial OC. My research findings suggest that rivers are variable sources of both old and young terrestrial dissolved organic carbon (DOC), and of very old terrestrial particulate organic carbon (POC) to the North Atlantic Ocean. I have also found that much of the young DOC can be selectively degraded over the residence times of river and coastal waters, leaving an even older and more refractory component for oceanic export. These findings contrasted with limited earlier data that suggested terrestrial organic matter transported by rivers in general might be enriched in bomb 14C, and hence represent organic matter recently fixed by plants. To date, due to scarcity of data, we lack the mechanistic understanding of what controls the age of organic matter exported from different terrestrial ecosystems. Current work from my laboratory concentrates on the age of OM exported from large Arctic Rivers draining into the Arctic Ocean (NSF-OPP PARTNERS project in collaboration with a group of US and Russian investigators), on the factors controlling the utilization of old terrestrial organic matter in the Hudson River (NSF-Ecosystems) and the character and age of organic carbon exported to the middle Atlantic Bight (NSF-ICCR). I have also recently been involved in two completed studies designed to establish the role of estuaries in the carbon budget of coastal watersheds. Work on the York River VA and the Parker River MA (part of the Plum Island LTER site), both demonstrated that these two East Coast estuaries are significant net sources of both inorganic and organic carbon. Furthermore, by using 14C and 13C measurements of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), DOC and POC the ages and sources of the internally added carbon were determined. Future work at the Plum Island LTER will continue to research how internal processes modulate the composition and age carbon transported to the coastal ocean. Over the last 3 years I have heavily leveraged USGS data to research how climate and land use change alter the export of carbon from US watersheds. Recent work includes determining how agricultural liming effects stream chemistry and pursuing empirical relationships between carbon export and climate. This work led directly to a CAREER grant through NSF. Finally, my laboratory is interested in the air-sea exchange of CO₂ in rivers and estuaries. This exchange is controlled, in part, by the physics of water movement and mixing in the top millimeter of a river or estuary. Over the past five years, I have been collaborating with researchers at Lamont Doherty, in order to develop methods to accurately measure the air-sea gas exchange of CO₂ in rivers and estuaries. Recently this work was provided support by the NSF. The goal is to use these methods to study the relative importance of and interaction between winds and tides on mixing the water surface and controlling air-sea gas exchange. This work will be an important step towards allowing researchers to close the carbon budget in rivers, estuaries and the coastal ocean world-wide.

Teaching

FES 630b - The Physical Science of Climate Change FES 644 - Watershed Science FES 714b - Environmental Hydrology FES 715 - Water Science Seminar FES 724a - Watershed Cycles and Processes FES 951 - Managing the Global Carbon Cycle

Bio

The Raymond lab’s research focuses on biogeochemistry of natural systems. In particular, we are interested in the carbon and nitrogen cycles within aquatic systems. Current research topics include the landscape controls on the watershed export of carbon, biogeochemical transformations in estuaries, the physics of air-sea CO2 exchange, nitrogen cycling in temperate watersheds, and determining the age and composition of carbon being transported from land to the ocean. Our research often utilizes the watershed approach and natural isotopes to determine major sources, sinks, and ages of various carbon and nitrogen pools in the natural environment.

Selected Publications

Refereed Publications

Caraco, N., J. E. Bauer, J. J. Cole, S. Petsch and P. Raymond (2010). Millennial-aged organic carbon subsidies to a modern river food web. Ecology 91: 2385-2393.

Raymond, P. A. and J. E. Saiers (2010). Event controlled DOC export from forested watersheds. Biogeochemistry DOI: 10.1007/s10533-010-9416-7.

Barnes, R. T. and P. A. Raymond (2009). The contribution of agricultrual and urban activities to inorganic carbon fluxes within temperate watersheds. Chem. Geol. 266: 327-336.

Crump, B. C., B. J. Peterson, P. A. Raymond, R. M. W. Amon, A. Rinehart, J. W. McClelland and R. M. Holmes (2009). Circumpolar synchrony in big river bacterioplankton. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0906149106. 106: 21208-21212.

Griffith, D.R., R.T. Barnes, and P.A. Raymond, 2009. Inputs of fossil carbon from wastewater treatment plants to U.S. rivers and oceans. Environ. Sci. Technol. In press.

Raymond, P.A, N-H Oh, 2009. Long term changes of chemical weathering products in rivers heavily impacted from acid mine drainage: Insights on the impacts of coal mining on regional and global carbon and sulfur budgets. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, in press.

Raymond, P.A, N-H Oh, R.E. Turner, W Broussard, 2008. Anthropogenically enhanced fluxes of water and carbon from the Mississippi River. Nature, 451 449-452.

Cooper, L. W., J. W. McClelland, R. M. Holmes, P. A. Raymond, J. J. Gibson, C. K. Guay, and B. J. Peterson. 2008. Flow-weighted values of runoff tracers (d18O, DOC, Ba, alkalinity) from the six largest Arctic rivers . Geophysical Research Letters 35, L18606, doi:10.1029/2008GL035007.

Holmes, R. M., J. W. McClelland, P. A. Raymond, B. B. Frazer, B. J. Peterson, and M. Stieglitz. 2008. Lability of DOC transported by Alaskan rivers to the Arctic Ocean. Geophysical Research Letters 35, L03402, doi:10.1029/2007GL032837.

Barnes, R.T., P.A. Raymond, & K.L. Casciotti. 2008. Dual isotope analyses indicate efficient processing of atmospheric nitrate by forested watersheds in the northeastern U.S. Biogeochemistry, DOI: 10.1007/s10533-009-9227-2.

McGillis, W.R., J.W.H Dacey, J.D. Ware, D.T. Ho, J.T. Bent, W.E. Asher, C.J. Zappa, P.A. Raymond, R. Wanninkhof, S. Komori. 2007. Air-water flux reconciliation between the atmospheric CO2 profile and mass balance techniques. C.S. Garbe, R.A Handler, B. Jahne (editors). in Transport at the air-sea interface: Measurements, models and parameterizations. Springer Verlag

Raymond, P.A., J. W. McClelland, R. M. Holmes, A. V Zhulidov, K. Mull, B. J. Peterson, R. G. Striegl, G. R Aiken, T. Y. Gurtovaya. 2007. The flux and age of DOC exported to the Arctic Ocean: A carbon isotopic study of the five larges arctic rivers. Global Biogeochem. Cycl., 21, GB4011, doi:10.1029/2007GB002934

Longworth, B.E., S.T. Petsch, P.A. Raymond, J.E. Bauer. 2007. Linking lithology and land-use to sources of dissolved and particulate organic matter in headwaters of a temperate, passive-margin river system. Geochem. Cosmochem. Acta, 71, 4233-4250

Butman D., P. A. Raymond, N-H Oh, K. Mull. 2007. Desorption and remineralization potential of soil organic carbon in freshwater and marine systems. Org. Geochem. 38, 1547-1557

Zappa, C.J., W.R. McGillis, P. A. Raymond, J. B. Edson, E. J. Hintsa, H. J. Zemmelink, J. W. Dacy, D. T Ho. 2007. Environmental turbulent mixing controls on air-water gas exchange in marine and aquatic systems. Geophys. Res. Lett. 34, L10601, doi:10.1029/2006GL028790

Raymond P.A., N-H. Oh. 2007. An empirical study of climatic controls on riverine carbon export from 3 major United States watersheds. Global Biogeochem. Cycl. 21, GB2022, doi:1029/2006GB002783

Striegl, R.G., M. M. Dornblaser, G. R. Aiken, K. P. Wickland, P. A. Raymond. 2007. Carbon export and cycling by the Yukon, Tanana and Porcupine Rivers, Alaska, 2001-2005. Water. Resour. Res. 43, W02411, doi:10.1029/2006WR005201.

Oh N-H, P. A. Raymond. 2006. Contribution of agricultural liming to riverine bicarbonate export and CO2 sequestration in the Ohio River basin. Global Biogeochem. Cycl. 20:GB3012

Raymond, P.A. 2005. The Composition and Transport of Organic Carbon in Rainfall: Insights from the Natural (13C and 14C) Isotopes of Carbon. Geophys. Res. Lett. 32:L14402

Striegl, R.G., G.R. Aiken, M.M Dornblaser, P.A. Raymond, K.P. Wickland. 2005. A decrease in the discharge normalized DOC export by the Yukon River during summer through autumn. Geophys. Res. Lett., 32:L21413

Cooper L., R. Benner, J. McClelland, R. Holmes, B. Peterson, P.A. Raymond, D. Hansell, J. M. Grebmeier, L.A., Codospoti. 2005. Linkages among runoff, dissolved organic carbon, and the stable oxygen isotope composition of seawater and other water mass indicators in the Arctic Ocean. J. Geophys. Res., 110:G02013

Raymond, P.A., Bauer, J.E., Caraco, N.F., Cole, J.J., Longworth, B. and Petsch, S.T., 2004. Controls on the variability of organic matter and dissolved inorganic carbon ages in northeast US rivers. Marine Chemistry, 92 353-366.

Raymond, P.A. and Cole, J.J., 2003. Increase in the export of alkalinity from North America's largest river. Science, 301 88-91.

Raymond, P.A. and Hopkinson, C.S., 2003. Ecosystem modulation of dissolved carbon age in a temperate marsh-dominated estuary. Ecosystems, 6 694-705.

Zappa, C.J., Raymond, P.A., Terray, E.A. and McGillis, W.R., 2003. Variation in surface turbulence and the gas transfer velocity over a tidal cycle in a macro-tidal estuary. Estuaries, 26 1401-1415.

Raymond, P.A. and Bauer, J.E., 2001a. DOC cycling in a temperate estuary: A mass balance approach using natural C-14 and C-13 isotopes. Limnology and Oceanography, 46 655-667.

Raymond, P.A. and Bauer, J.E., 2001b. Riverine export of aged terrestrial organic matter to the North Atlantic Ocean. Nature, 409 497-500.

Raymond, P.A. and Bauer, J.E., 2001c. Use of C-14 and C-13 natural abundances for evaluating riverine, estuarine, and coastal DOC and POC sources and cycling: a review and synthesis. Organic Geochemistry, 32 469-485.

Raymond, P.A. and Cole, J.J., 2001. Gas exchange in rivers and estuaries: Choosing a gas transfer velocity. Estuaries, 24 312-317.

Ducklow, HW, GL. Schultz, P. Raymond, J Bauer and F-K Shiah. 2000. "Bacterial and DOM dynamics in large and small estuaries." Pp 105-112 In: CR. Bell, M. Brylinsky and P. Johnson-Green, Eds, Microbial Biosystems-New Frontiers. Proc. 8th Int'l Symposium on Microbial Ecology. Atlantic Canada Society for Microbial Ecology: Halifax NS. 939pg

Raymond, P.A. and Bauer, J.E., 2000. Bacterial consumption of DOC during transport through a temperate estuary. Aquatic Microbial Ecology, 22 1-12.

Raymond, P.A., Bauer, J.E. and Cole, J.J., 2000. Atmospheric CO2 evasion, dissolved inorganic carbon production, and net heterotrophy in the York River estuary. Limnology and Oceanography, 45 1707-1717.

Raymond, P.A., Caraco, N.F. and Cole, J.J., 1997. Carbon dioxide concentration and atmospheric flux in the Hudson River. Estuaries, 20 381-390.

Caraco, N.F., Cole, J.J., Raymond, P.A., Strayer, D.L., Pace, M.L., Findlay, S.E.G. and Fischer, D.T., 1997. Zebra mussel invasion in a large, turbid river: Phytoplankton response to increased grazing. Ecology, 78 588-602.

Raymond P.A., J.J. Cole. 1994. The use of direct carbon dioxide measurements on the Hudson River Estuary. Final Reports of the Tibor T. Polgar Fellowship Program, 1993. Section I

Non-Refereed Publications

Raymond, P.A., 2005. The Age of the Amazon's Breath. Nature, 436 469-470.

Raymond, P. and Cole, J., 2003. Response to "Alkalinity Export and Carbon Balance". Science, 302 985.

Raymond, P. and Cole, J., 2003. Response to Comment on "Increased Alkalinity in the Mississippi". Science, 302 985-987.