Extreme storm events, landscape denudation, and carbon sequestration: Typhoon Mindulle, Choshui River, Taiwan

Abstract

We have performed the first known semicontinuous monitoring of particulate organic carbon (POC) fluxes and dissolved Si concentrations delivered to the ocean during a typhoon. Sampling of the Choshui River in Taiwan during Typhoon Mindulle in 2004 revealed a POC flux of 5.00 × 10⁵ t associated with a sediment flux of 61 Mt during a 96 h period. The linkage of high amounts of POC with sediment concentrations capable of generating a hyperpycnal plume upon reaching the ocean provides the first known evidence for the rapid delivery and burial of POC from the terrestrial system. These fluxes, when combined with storm-derived CO₂ consumption of 1.65 × 10⁸ mol from silicate weathering, elucidate the important role of these tropical cyclone events on small mountainous rivers as a global sink of CO₂.