Soil temperature response to 21st century global warming: the role of and some implications for peat carbon in thawing permafrost soils in North America
Northern peatlands contain a large terrestrial carbon pool that plays an important role in the Earth’s carbon cycle. A considerable fraction of this carbon pool is currently in permafrost and is biogeochemically relatively inert; this will change with increasing soil temperatures as a result of clim...
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ftuninhampshire:oai:scholars.unh.edu:earthsci_facpub-1279 2023-05-15T17:57:04+02:00 Soil temperature response to 21st century global warming: the role of and some implications for peat carbon in thawing permafrost soils in North America Wisser, Dominik Marchenko, S Talbot, Julie Treat, C C Frolking, Steve 2011-06-24T07:00:00Z application/pdf https://scholars.unh.edu/earthsci_facpub/280 https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1279&context=earthsci_facpub unknown University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository https://scholars.unh.edu/earthsci_facpub/280 https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1279&context=earthsci_facpub © Author(s) 2011. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. CC-BY Earth Sciences Scholarship text 2011 ftuninhampshire 2023-01-30T21:35:03Z Northern peatlands contain a large terrestrial carbon pool that plays an important role in the Earth’s carbon cycle. A considerable fraction of this carbon pool is currently in permafrost and is biogeochemically relatively inert; this will change with increasing soil temperatures as a result of climate warming in the 21st century. We use a geospatially explicit representation of peat areas and peat depth from a recently-compiled database and a geothermal model to estimate northern North America soil temperature responses to predicted changes in air temperature. We find that, despite a widespread decline in the areas classified as permafrost, soil temperatures in peatlands respond more slowly to increases in air temperature owing to the insulating properties of peat. We estimate that an additional 670 km3 of peat soils in North America, containing ∼33 Pg C, could be seasonally thawed by the end of the century, representing ∼20 % of the total peat volume in Alaska and Canada. Warming conditions result in a lengthening of the soil thaw period by ∼40 days, averaged over the model domain. These changes have potentially important implications for the carbon balance of peat soils. Text permafrost Alaska University of New Hampshire: Scholars Repository Canada |
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University of New Hampshire: Scholars Repository |
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Northern peatlands contain a large terrestrial carbon pool that plays an important role in the Earth’s carbon cycle. A considerable fraction of this carbon pool is currently in permafrost and is biogeochemically relatively inert; this will change with increasing soil temperatures as a result of climate warming in the 21st century. We use a geospatially explicit representation of peat areas and peat depth from a recently-compiled database and a geothermal model to estimate northern North America soil temperature responses to predicted changes in air temperature. We find that, despite a widespread decline in the areas classified as permafrost, soil temperatures in peatlands respond more slowly to increases in air temperature owing to the insulating properties of peat. We estimate that an additional 670 km3 of peat soils in North America, containing ∼33 Pg C, could be seasonally thawed by the end of the century, representing ∼20 % of the total peat volume in Alaska and Canada. Warming conditions result in a lengthening of the soil thaw period by ∼40 days, averaged over the model domain. These changes have potentially important implications for the carbon balance of peat soils. |
format |
Text |
author |
Wisser, Dominik Marchenko, S Talbot, Julie Treat, C C Frolking, Steve |
spellingShingle |
Wisser, Dominik Marchenko, S Talbot, Julie Treat, C C Frolking, Steve Soil temperature response to 21st century global warming: the role of and some implications for peat carbon in thawing permafrost soils in North America |
author_facet |
Wisser, Dominik Marchenko, S Talbot, Julie Treat, C C Frolking, Steve |
author_sort |
Wisser, Dominik |
title |
Soil temperature response to 21st century global warming: the role of and some implications for peat carbon in thawing permafrost soils in North America |
title_short |
Soil temperature response to 21st century global warming: the role of and some implications for peat carbon in thawing permafrost soils in North America |
title_full |
Soil temperature response to 21st century global warming: the role of and some implications for peat carbon in thawing permafrost soils in North America |
title_fullStr |
Soil temperature response to 21st century global warming: the role of and some implications for peat carbon in thawing permafrost soils in North America |
title_full_unstemmed |
Soil temperature response to 21st century global warming: the role of and some implications for peat carbon in thawing permafrost soils in North America |
title_sort |
soil temperature response to 21st century global warming: the role of and some implications for peat carbon in thawing permafrost soils in north america |
publisher |
University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository |
publishDate |
2011 |
url |
https://scholars.unh.edu/earthsci_facpub/280 https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1279&context=earthsci_facpub |
geographic |
Canada |
geographic_facet |
Canada |
genre |
permafrost Alaska |
genre_facet |
permafrost Alaska |
op_source |
Earth Sciences Scholarship |
op_relation |
https://scholars.unh.edu/earthsci_facpub/280 https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1279&context=earthsci_facpub |
op_rights |
© Author(s) 2011. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
_version_ |
1766165423103934464 |