The Northern Circumpolar Soil Carbon Database: spatially distributed datasets of soil coverage and soil carbon storage in the northern permafrost regions

High-latitude terrestrial ecosystems are key components in the global carbon (C) cycle. Estimates of global soil organic carbon (SOC), however, do not include updated estimates of SOC storage in permafrost-affected soils or representation of the unique pedogenic processes that affect these soils. Th...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Earth System Science Data
Main Authors: G. Hugelius, C. Tarnocai, G. Broll, J. G. Canadell, P. Kuhry, D. K. Swanson
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Copernicus Publications 2013
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-5-3-2013
https://doaj.org/article/ed082ed3e7e44748bf5b6a3ac8de8571
Description
Summary:High-latitude terrestrial ecosystems are key components in the global carbon (C) cycle. Estimates of global soil organic carbon (SOC), however, do not include updated estimates of SOC storage in permafrost-affected soils or representation of the unique pedogenic processes that affect these soils. The Northern Circumpolar Soil Carbon Database (NCSCD) was developed to quantify the SOC stocks in the circumpolar permafrost region (18.7 × 10 6 km 2 ). The NCSCD is a polygon-based digital database compiled from harmonized regional soil classification maps in which data on soil order coverage have been linked to pedon data ( n = 1778) from the northern permafrost regions to calculate SOC content and mass. In addition, new gridded datasets at different spatial resolutions have been generated to facilitate research applications using the NCSCD (standard raster formats for use in geographic information systems and Network Common Data Form files common for applications in numerical models). This paper describes the compilation of the NCSCD spatial framework, the soil sampling and soil analytical procedures used to derive SOC content in pedons from North America and Eurasia and the formatting of the digital files that are available online. The potential applications and limitations of the NCSCD in spatial analyses are also discussed. The database has the doi:10.5879/ecds/00000001 . An open access data portal with all the described GIS-datasets is available online at: http://www.bbcc.su.se/data/ncscd/ .