Limited response of peatland CH 4 emissions to abrupt Atlantic Ocean circulation changes in glacial climates

• Published in: Climate of the Past
• Main Authors: P. O. Hopcroft, P. J. Valdes, R. Wania, D. J. Beerling
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications 2014
• Subjects: Environmental pollution; TD172-193.5; Environmental protection; TD169-171.8; Environmental sciences; GE1-350; Greenland; Sheffield; Ice; ice core; North Atlantic; permafrost
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-10-137-2014; https://doaj.org/article/f298da05ec6541ca8288d3dd6318af9a

Ice-core records show that abrupt Dansgaard–Oeschger (D–O) climatic warming events of the last glacial period were accompanied by large increases in the atmospheric CH 4 concentration (up to 200 ppbv). These abrupt changes are generally regarded as arising from the effects of changes in the Atlantic Ocean meridional overturning circulation and the resultant climatic impact on natural CH 4 sources, in particular wetlands. We use two different ecosystem models of wetland CH 4 emissions to simulate northern CH 4 sources forced with coupled general circulation model simulations of five different time periods during the last glacial to investigate the potential influence of abrupt ocean circulation changes on atmospheric CH 4 levels during D–O events. The simulated warming over Greenland of 7–9 °C in the different time periods is at the lower end of the range of 11–15 °C derived from ice cores, but is associated with strong impacts on the hydrological cycle, especially over the North Atlantic and Europe during winter. We find that although the sensitivity of CH 4 emissions to the imposed climate varies significantly between the two ecosystem emissions models, the model simulations do not reproduce sufficient emission changes to satisfy ice-core observations of CH 4 increases during abrupt events. The inclusion of permafrost physics and peatland carbon cycling in one model (LPJ-WHyMe) increases the climatic sensitivity of CH4 4 emissions relative to the Sheffield Dynamic Global Vegetation Model (SDGVM) model, which does not incorporate these processes. For equilibrium conditions this additional sensitivity is mostly due to differences in carbon cycle processes, whilst the increased sensitivity to the imposed abrupt warmings is also partly due to the effects of freezing on soil thermodynamics. These results suggest that alternative scenarios of climatic change could be required to explain the abrupt glacial CH 4 variations, perhaps with a more dominant role for tropical wetland CH 4 sources.