Large stocks of peatland carbon and nitrogen are vulnerable to permafrost thaw
Northern peatlands have accumulated large stocks of organic carbon (C) and nitrogen (N), but their spatial distribution and vulnerability to climate warming remain uncertain. Here, we used machine-learning techniques with extensive peat core data (n > 7,000) to create observation-based maps of no...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:7456150 2023-05-15T17:56:23+02:00 Large stocks of peatland carbon and nitrogen are vulnerable to permafrost thaw Hugelius, Gustaf Loisel, Julie Chadburn, Sarah Jackson, Robert B. Jones, Miriam MacDonald, Glen Marushchak, Maija Olefeldt, David Packalen, Maara Siewert, Matthias B. Treat, Claire Turetsky, Merritt Voigt, Carolina Yu, Zicheng 2020-08-25 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7456150/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32778585 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1916387117 en eng National Academy of Sciences http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7456150/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32778585 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1916387117 Copyright © 2020 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . CC-BY Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Physical Sciences Text 2020 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1916387117 2020-09-13T00:19:34Z Northern peatlands have accumulated large stocks of organic carbon (C) and nitrogen (N), but their spatial distribution and vulnerability to climate warming remain uncertain. Here, we used machine-learning techniques with extensive peat core data (n > 7,000) to create observation-based maps of northern peatland C and N stocks, and to assess their response to warming and permafrost thaw. We estimate that northern peatlands cover 3.7 ± 0.5 million km(2) and store 415 ± 150 Pg C and 10 ± 7 Pg N. Nearly half of the peatland area and peat C stocks are permafrost affected. Using modeled global warming stabilization scenarios (from 1.5 to 6 °C warming), we project that the current sink of atmospheric C (0.10 ± 0.02 Pg C⋅y(−1)) in northern peatlands will shift to a C source as 0.8 to 1.9 million km(2) of permafrost-affected peatlands thaw. The projected thaw would cause peatland greenhouse gas emissions equal to ∼1% of anthropogenic radiative forcing in this century. The main forcing is from methane emissions (0.7 to 3 Pg cumulative CH(4)-C) with smaller carbon dioxide forcing (1 to 2 Pg CO(2)-C) and minor nitrous oxide losses. We project that initial CO(2)-C losses reverse after ∼200 y, as warming strengthens peatland C-sinks. We project substantial, but highly uncertain, additional losses of peat into fluvial systems of 10 to 30 Pg C and 0.4 to 0.9 Pg N. The combined gaseous and fluvial peatland C loss estimated here adds 30 to 50% onto previous estimates of permafrost-thaw C losses, with southern permafrost regions being the most vulnerable. Text permafrost PubMed Central (PMC) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117 34 20438 20446 |
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Open Polar |
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PubMed Central (PMC) |
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ftpubmed |
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English |
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Physical Sciences |
spellingShingle |
Physical Sciences Hugelius, Gustaf Loisel, Julie Chadburn, Sarah Jackson, Robert B. Jones, Miriam MacDonald, Glen Marushchak, Maija Olefeldt, David Packalen, Maara Siewert, Matthias B. Treat, Claire Turetsky, Merritt Voigt, Carolina Yu, Zicheng Large stocks of peatland carbon and nitrogen are vulnerable to permafrost thaw |
topic_facet |
Physical Sciences |
description |
Northern peatlands have accumulated large stocks of organic carbon (C) and nitrogen (N), but their spatial distribution and vulnerability to climate warming remain uncertain. Here, we used machine-learning techniques with extensive peat core data (n > 7,000) to create observation-based maps of northern peatland C and N stocks, and to assess their response to warming and permafrost thaw. We estimate that northern peatlands cover 3.7 ± 0.5 million km(2) and store 415 ± 150 Pg C and 10 ± 7 Pg N. Nearly half of the peatland area and peat C stocks are permafrost affected. Using modeled global warming stabilization scenarios (from 1.5 to 6 °C warming), we project that the current sink of atmospheric C (0.10 ± 0.02 Pg C⋅y(−1)) in northern peatlands will shift to a C source as 0.8 to 1.9 million km(2) of permafrost-affected peatlands thaw. The projected thaw would cause peatland greenhouse gas emissions equal to ∼1% of anthropogenic radiative forcing in this century. The main forcing is from methane emissions (0.7 to 3 Pg cumulative CH(4)-C) with smaller carbon dioxide forcing (1 to 2 Pg CO(2)-C) and minor nitrous oxide losses. We project that initial CO(2)-C losses reverse after ∼200 y, as warming strengthens peatland C-sinks. We project substantial, but highly uncertain, additional losses of peat into fluvial systems of 10 to 30 Pg C and 0.4 to 0.9 Pg N. The combined gaseous and fluvial peatland C loss estimated here adds 30 to 50% onto previous estimates of permafrost-thaw C losses, with southern permafrost regions being the most vulnerable. |
format |
Text |
author |
Hugelius, Gustaf Loisel, Julie Chadburn, Sarah Jackson, Robert B. Jones, Miriam MacDonald, Glen Marushchak, Maija Olefeldt, David Packalen, Maara Siewert, Matthias B. Treat, Claire Turetsky, Merritt Voigt, Carolina Yu, Zicheng |
author_facet |
Hugelius, Gustaf Loisel, Julie Chadburn, Sarah Jackson, Robert B. Jones, Miriam MacDonald, Glen Marushchak, Maija Olefeldt, David Packalen, Maara Siewert, Matthias B. Treat, Claire Turetsky, Merritt Voigt, Carolina Yu, Zicheng |
author_sort |
Hugelius, Gustaf |
title |
Large stocks of peatland carbon and nitrogen are vulnerable to permafrost thaw |
title_short |
Large stocks of peatland carbon and nitrogen are vulnerable to permafrost thaw |
title_full |
Large stocks of peatland carbon and nitrogen are vulnerable to permafrost thaw |
title_fullStr |
Large stocks of peatland carbon and nitrogen are vulnerable to permafrost thaw |
title_full_unstemmed |
Large stocks of peatland carbon and nitrogen are vulnerable to permafrost thaw |
title_sort |
large stocks of peatland carbon and nitrogen are vulnerable to permafrost thaw |
publisher |
National Academy of Sciences |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7456150/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32778585 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1916387117 |
genre |
permafrost |
genre_facet |
permafrost |
op_source |
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7456150/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32778585 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1916387117 |
op_rights |
Copyright © 2020 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1916387117 |
container_title |
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |
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117 |
container_issue |
34 |
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20438 |
op_container_end_page |
20446 |
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1766164532254736384 |