Mobilization of terrestrial organic matter from thawing Arctic permafrost regions: Insights from lignin-derived phenols and their compound-specific radiocarbon ages ...

• Main Author: Cao, Mengli
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Universität Bremen 2023
• Subjects: Permafrost; Organic carbon; Arctic; Climate warming; Lignin; 550; Arctic Ocean; Bering Sea; Climate change; okhotsk sea; permafrost
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.26092/elib/2686; https://media.suub.uni-bremen.de/handle/elib/7462

Global climate change is expected to have a huge impact on Arctic warming, leading to an increased remobilization of permafrost organic carbon. More than twice as much carbon as in the atmosphere is contained in permafrost soils, and may upon destabilization expose large amounts of organic matter to microbial degradation and release climate-forcing greenhouse gases. As an important link in the land-ocean continuum, rivers are important pathways for permafrost OC remobilization. Arctic ocean sediments are thus receptors of terrestrial OC remobilization for a large part of the circum-Arctic drainage basin and offer an archive to study past terrestrial OC remobilization as during the last deglaciation. This thesis studies terrestrial OC in sub-Arctic ocean sediments to study OC remobilization from permafrost regions across temporal and spatial scales. A detailed study of two sediment cores from the Bering Sea and Okhotsk Sea, allowed the reconstruction of vegetation development, permafrost OC mobilization, and ...