Massive remobilization of permafrost carbon during post-glacial warming

Recent hypotheses, based on atmospheric records and models, suggest that permafrost carbon (PF-C) accumulated during the last glaciation may have been an important source for the atmospheric CO2 rise during post-glacial warming. However, direct physical indications for such PF-C release have so far...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature Communications
Main Authors: Tesi, T., Muschitiello, F., Smittenberg, R. H., Jakobsson, M., Vonk, J. E., Hill, P., Andersson, A., Kirchner, N., Noormets, R., Dudarev, O., Semiletov, I., Gustafsson, Ö
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: Nature Publishing Group 2016
Subjects:
Article
Arctic
Arctic Ocean
Laptev Sea
laptev
permafrost
Online Access:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5141343/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27897191
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13653
Description
Summary:Recent hypotheses, based on atmospheric records and models, suggest that permafrost carbon (PF-C) accumulated during the last glaciation may have been an important source for the atmospheric CO2 rise during post-glacial warming. However, direct physical indications for such PF-C release have so far been absent. Here we use the Laptev Sea (Arctic Ocean) as an archive to investigate PF-C destabilization during the last glacial–interglacial period. Our results show evidence for massive supply of PF-C from Siberian soils as a result of severe active layer deepening in response to the warming. Thawing of PF-C must also have brought about an enhanced organic matter respiration and, thus, these findings suggest that PF-C may indeed have been an important source of CO2 across the extensive permafrost domain. The results challenge current paradigms on the post-glacial CO2 rise and, at the same time, serve as a harbinger for possible consequences of the present-day warming of PF-C soils.

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