Permafrost carbon cycle and its dynamics on the Tibetan Plateau.

Our knowledge on permafrost carbon (C) cycle is crucial for understanding its feedback to climate warming and developing nature-based solutions for mitigating climate change. To understand the characteristics of permafrost C cycle on the Tibetan Plateau, the largest alpine permafrost region around t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science China Life Sciences
Main Authors: Chen, Leiyi, Yang, Guibiao, Bai, Yuxuan, Chang, Jinfeng, Qin, Shuqi, Liu, Futing, He, Mei, Song, Yutong, Zhang, Fan, Peñuelas, Josep, Zhu, Biao, Zhou, Guoying, Yang, Yuanhe
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Springer 2024
Subjects:
carbon release
carbon sink
climate change
permafrost carbon
permafrost thaw
thermokarst formation
permafrost
Thermokarst
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-023-2601-1
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38951429
Description
Summary:Our knowledge on permafrost carbon (C) cycle is crucial for understanding its feedback to climate warming and developing nature-based solutions for mitigating climate change. To understand the characteristics of permafrost C cycle on the Tibetan Plateau, the largest alpine permafrost region around the world, we summarized recent advances including the stocks and fluxes of permafrost C and their responses to thawing, and depicted permafrost C dynamics within this century. We find that this alpine permafrost region stores approximately 14.1 Pg (1 Pg=1015 g) of soil organic C (SOC) in the top 3 m. Both substantial gaseous emissions and lateral C transport occur across this permafrost region. Moreover, the mobilization of frozen C is expedited by permafrost thaw, especially by the formation of thermokarst landscapes, which could release significant amounts of C into the atmosphere and surrounding water bodies. This alpine permafrost region nevertheless remains an important C sink, and its capacity to sequester C will continue to increase by 2100. For future perspectives, we would suggest developing long-term in situ observation networks of C stocks and fluxes with improved temporal and spatial coverage, and exploring the mechanisms underlying the response of ecosystem C cycle to permafrost thaw. In addition, it is essential to improve the projection of permafrost C dynamics through in-depth model-data fusion on the Tibetan Plateau.

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