Climate-related changes in peatland carbon accumulation during the last millennium
PUBLISHED Peatlands are a major terrestrial carbon store and a persistent natural carbon sink during the Holocene, but there is considerable uncertainty over the fate of peatland carbon in a changing climate. It is generally assumed that higher temperatures will increase peat decay, causing a positi...
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fttrinitycoll:oai:tara.tcd.ie:2262/72736 2023-05-15T16:37:50+02:00 Climate-related changes in peatland carbon accumulation during the last millennium MITCHELL, FRASER 2013 929 944 http://hdl.handle.net/2262/72736 http://people.tcd.ie/fmitchll en eng Biogeosciences 10 Charman, D. J., Beilman, D. W., Blaauw, M., Booth, R. K., Brewer, S., Chambers, F. M., Christen, J. A., Gallego-Sala, A., Harrison, S. P., Hughes, P. D. M., Jackson, S. T., Korhola, A., Mauquoy, D., Mitchell, F. J. G., Prentice, I. C., van der Linden, M., De Vleeschouwer, F., Yu, Z. C., Alm, J., Bauer, I. E., Corish, Y. M. C., Garneau, M., Hohl, V., Huang, Y., Karofeld, E., Le Roux, G., Loisel, J., Moschen, R., Nichols, J. E., Nieminen, T. M., MacDonald, G. M., Phadtare, N. R., Rausch, N., Sillasoo, ?., Swindles, G. T., Tuittila, E. S., Ukonmaanaho, L., V?liranta, M., van Bellen, S., van Geel, B., Vitt, D. H. & Zhao, Y. , Climate-related changes in peatland carbon accumulation during the last millennium, Biogeosciences, 10, 2013, 929 - 944 Y http://hdl.handle.net/2262/72736 http://people.tcd.ie/fmitchll 83026 Y openAccess peatlands Smart & Sustainable Planet Journal Article scholarly_publications refereed_publications 2013 fttrinitycoll 2020-02-16T13:55:16Z PUBLISHED Peatlands are a major terrestrial carbon store and a persistent natural carbon sink during the Holocene, but there is considerable uncertainty over the fate of peatland carbon in a changing climate. It is generally assumed that higher temperatures will increase peat decay, causing a positive feedback to climate warming and contributing to the global positive carbon cycle feedback. Here we use a new extensive database of peat profiles across northern high latitudes to examine spatial and temporal patterns of carbon accumulation over the past millennium. Opposite to expectations, our results indicate a small negative carbon cycle feedback from past changes in the long-term accumulation rates of northern peatlands. Total carbon accumulated over the last 1000 yr is linearly related to contemporary growing season length and photosynthetically active radiation, suggesting that variability in net primary productivity is more important than decomposition in determining long-term carbon accumulation. Furthermore, northern peatland carbon sequestration rate declined over the climate transition from the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) to the Little Ice Age (LIA), probably because of lower LIA temperatures combined with increased cloudiness suppressing net primary productivity. Other factors including changing moisture status, peatland distribution, fire, nitrogen deposition, permafrost thaw and methane emissions will also influence future peatland carbon cycle feedbacks, but our data suggest that the carbon sequestration rate could increase over many areas of northern peatlands in a warmer future. Article in Journal/Newspaper Ice permafrost The University of Dublin, Trinity College: TARA (Trinity's Access to Research Archive) |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
The University of Dublin, Trinity College: TARA (Trinity's Access to Research Archive) |
op_collection_id |
fttrinitycoll |
language |
English |
topic |
peatlands Smart & Sustainable Planet |
spellingShingle |
peatlands Smart & Sustainable Planet MITCHELL, FRASER Climate-related changes in peatland carbon accumulation during the last millennium |
topic_facet |
peatlands Smart & Sustainable Planet |
description |
PUBLISHED Peatlands are a major terrestrial carbon store and a persistent natural carbon sink during the Holocene, but there is considerable uncertainty over the fate of peatland carbon in a changing climate. It is generally assumed that higher temperatures will increase peat decay, causing a positive feedback to climate warming and contributing to the global positive carbon cycle feedback. Here we use a new extensive database of peat profiles across northern high latitudes to examine spatial and temporal patterns of carbon accumulation over the past millennium. Opposite to expectations, our results indicate a small negative carbon cycle feedback from past changes in the long-term accumulation rates of northern peatlands. Total carbon accumulated over the last 1000 yr is linearly related to contemporary growing season length and photosynthetically active radiation, suggesting that variability in net primary productivity is more important than decomposition in determining long-term carbon accumulation. Furthermore, northern peatland carbon sequestration rate declined over the climate transition from the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) to the Little Ice Age (LIA), probably because of lower LIA temperatures combined with increased cloudiness suppressing net primary productivity. Other factors including changing moisture status, peatland distribution, fire, nitrogen deposition, permafrost thaw and methane emissions will also influence future peatland carbon cycle feedbacks, but our data suggest that the carbon sequestration rate could increase over many areas of northern peatlands in a warmer future. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
MITCHELL, FRASER |
author_facet |
MITCHELL, FRASER |
author_sort |
MITCHELL, FRASER |
title |
Climate-related changes in peatland carbon accumulation during the last millennium |
title_short |
Climate-related changes in peatland carbon accumulation during the last millennium |
title_full |
Climate-related changes in peatland carbon accumulation during the last millennium |
title_fullStr |
Climate-related changes in peatland carbon accumulation during the last millennium |
title_full_unstemmed |
Climate-related changes in peatland carbon accumulation during the last millennium |
title_sort |
climate-related changes in peatland carbon accumulation during the last millennium |
publishDate |
2013 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/2262/72736 http://people.tcd.ie/fmitchll |
genre |
Ice permafrost |
genre_facet |
Ice permafrost |
op_relation |
Biogeosciences 10 Charman, D. J., Beilman, D. W., Blaauw, M., Booth, R. K., Brewer, S., Chambers, F. M., Christen, J. A., Gallego-Sala, A., Harrison, S. P., Hughes, P. D. M., Jackson, S. T., Korhola, A., Mauquoy, D., Mitchell, F. J. G., Prentice, I. C., van der Linden, M., De Vleeschouwer, F., Yu, Z. C., Alm, J., Bauer, I. E., Corish, Y. M. C., Garneau, M., Hohl, V., Huang, Y., Karofeld, E., Le Roux, G., Loisel, J., Moschen, R., Nichols, J. E., Nieminen, T. M., MacDonald, G. M., Phadtare, N. R., Rausch, N., Sillasoo, ?., Swindles, G. T., Tuittila, E. S., Ukonmaanaho, L., V?liranta, M., van Bellen, S., van Geel, B., Vitt, D. H. & Zhao, Y. , Climate-related changes in peatland carbon accumulation during the last millennium, Biogeosciences, 10, 2013, 929 - 944 Y http://hdl.handle.net/2262/72736 http://people.tcd.ie/fmitchll 83026 |
op_rights |
Y openAccess |
_version_ |
1766028134582321152 |