Alpine permafrost could account for a quarter of thawed carbon based on Plio-Pleistocene paleoclimate analogue

Estimates of the permafrost-climate feedback vary in magnitude and sign, partly because permafrost carbon stability in warmer-than-present conditions is not well constrained. Here we use a Plio-Pleistocene lacustrine reconstruction of mean annual air temperature (MAAT) from the Tibetan Plateau, the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature Communications
Main Authors: Cheng, Feng, Garzione, Carmala, Li, Xiangzhong, Salzmann, Ulrich, Schwarz, Florian, Haywood, Alan M., Tindall, Julia, Nie, Junsheng, Li, Lin, Wang, Lin, Abbott, Benjamin W., Elliott, Ben, Liu, Weiguo, Upadhyay, Deepshikha, Arnold, Alexandrea, Tripati, Aradhna
Format: Report
Language:English
Published: NATURE PORTFOLIO 2022
Subjects:
KUNLUN PASS BASIN
CLUMPED ISOTOPE ANALYSIS
TIBETAN PLATEAU
CLIMATE-CHANGE
ELEVATION
DELTA(47)
REGIONS
RECONSTRUCTIONS
GEOCHRONOLOGY
AMPLIFICATION
Science & Technology - Other Topics
Multidisciplinary Sciences
permafrost
Online Access:http://ir.ieecas.cn/handle/361006/17583
http://ir.ieecas.cn/handle/361006/17584
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-29011-2
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Summary:Estimates of the permafrost-climate feedback vary in magnitude and sign, partly because permafrost carbon stability in warmer-than-present conditions is not well constrained. Here we use a Plio-Pleistocene lacustrine reconstruction of mean annual air temperature (MAAT) from the Tibetan Plateau, the largest alpine permafrost region on the Earth, to constrain past and future changes in permafrost carbon storage. Clumped isotope-temperatures (Delta(47)-T) indicate warmer MAAT (similar to 1.2 degrees C) prior to 2.7 Ma, and support a permafrost-free environment on the northern Tibetan Plateau in a warmer-than-present climate. Delta(47)-T indicate similar to 8.1 degrees C cooling from 2.7 Ma, coincident with Northern Hemisphere glacial intensification. Combined with climate models and global permafrost distribution, these results indicate, under conditions similar to mid-Pliocene Warm period (3.3-3.0 Ma), similar to 60% of alpine permafrost containing similar to 85 petagrams of carbon may be vulnerable to thawing compared to similar to 20% of circumarctic permafrost. This estimate highlights similar to 25% of permafrost carbon and the permafrost-climate feedback could originate in alpine areas.

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