Greenhouse gas emission from the cold soils of Eurasia in natural settings and under human impact:Controls on spatial variability

• Published in: Geoderma Regional
• Main Authors: Karelin, Dmitry, Goryachkin, Sergey, Zazovskaya, Elya, Shishkov, Vasily, Pochikalov, Alex, Dolgikh, Andrey, Sirin, Andrey, Suvorov, Gennady, Badmaev, Nimazhap, Badmaeva, Natalia, Tsybenov, Yuri, Kulikov, Anatoly, Danilov, Piotr, Savinov, Grigory, Desyatkin, Aleksey, Desyatkin, Roman, Kraev, Gleb
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: Arctic; Cambisols; CO; Cryogenic soil; Cryosols; Emission; Greenhouse gas; Land use; Methane; Nitrous oxide; Permafrost; Soil respiration; Tundra; Ultra-continental Siberia; /dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/climate_action; name=SDG 13 - Climate Action; Svalbard; permafrost; taiga; Siberia
• Online Access: https://research.vu.nl/en/publications/54ef3311-a176-4304-a866-859a8259e0b2; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geodrs.2020.e00290; https://hdl.handle.net/1871.1/54ef3311-a176-4304-a866-859a8259e0b2; http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85084434168&partnerID=8YFLogxK; http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85084434168&partnerID=8YFLogxK

The annual balance of biogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs; carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), methane (CH 4 ), and nitrous oxide (N 2 O)) in the atmosphere is well studied. However, the contributions of specific natural land sources and sinks remain unclear, and the effect of different human land use activities is understudied. A simple way to do this is to evaluate GHG soil emissions. For CO 2 , it usually comprises 60–75% of gross respiration in natural terrestrial ecosystems, while local human impact can increase this share to almost 100%. Permafrost-affected soils occupying 15% of the land surface mostly in the Eurasia and North America contain approximately 25% of the total terrestrial carbon. The biogenic GHG soil emissions from permafrost are 5% of the global total, which makes these soils extremely important in the warming world. Measurements of CO 2 , methane, and nitrous oxide, from eighteen locations in the Arctic and Siberian permafrost, across tundra, steppe, and north taiga domains of Russia and Svalbard, were conducted from August to September during 2014–2017 in 37 biotopes representing natural conditions and different types of human impact. We demonstrate that land use caused significant alteration in soil emission and net fluxes of GHGs compared to natural rates, regardless of the type and duration of human impact and the ecosystem type. The cumulative effect of land use factors very likely supported an additional net-source of CO 2 into the atmosphere because of residual microbial respiration in soil after the destruction of vegetation and primary production under anthropogenic influence. Local drainage effects were more significant for methane emission. In general, land use factors enforced soil emission and net-sources of CO 2 and N 2 O and weakened methane sources. Despite the extended heat supply, high aridity caused significantly lower emissions of methane and nitrous oxide in ultra-continental Siberian permafrost soils. However, these climatic features support higher soil CO 2 emission rates, in spite ...