Modelling past and future peatland carbon dynamics across the pan-Arctic
The majority of northern peatlands were initiated during the Holocene. Owing to their mass imbalance, they have sequestered huge amounts of carbon in terrestrial ecosystems. Although recent syntheses have filled some knowledge gaps, the extent and remoteness of many peatlands pose challenges to deve...
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ftzenodo:oai:zenodo.org:3898523 2023-05-15T14:56:43+02:00 Modelling past and future peatland carbon dynamics across the pan-Arctic Chaudhary, Nitin Westermann, Sebastian Lamba, Shubhangi Shurpali, Narasinha Sannel, A. Britta K. Schurgers, Guy Miller, Paul A. Smith, Benjamin 2020-03-19 https://zenodo.org/record/3898523 https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15099 eng eng info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/773421/ https://zenodo.org/communities/nunataryuk https://zenodo.org/record/3898523 https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15099 oai:zenodo.org:3898523 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode Global Change Biology 26(7) 4119-4133 basal age carbon accumulation climate change dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) peatland permafrost info:eu-repo/semantics/article publication-article 2020 ftzenodo https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15099 2023-03-10T22:10:49Z The majority of northern peatlands were initiated during the Holocene. Owing to their mass imbalance, they have sequestered huge amounts of carbon in terrestrial ecosystems. Although recent syntheses have filled some knowledge gaps, the extent and remoteness of many peatlands pose challenges to developing reliable regional carbon accumulation estimates from observations. In this work, we employed an individual- and patch-based dynamic global vegetation model (LPJ-GUESS) with peatland and permafrost functionality to quantify long-term carbon accumulation rates in northern peatlands and to assess the effects of historical and projected future climate change on peatland carbon balance. We combined published datasets of peat basal age to form an up-to-date peat inception surface for the pan-Arctic region which we then used to constrain the model. We divided our analysis into two parts, with a focus both on the carbon accumulation changes detected within the observed peatland boundary and at pan-Arctic scale under two contrasting warming scenarios (representative concentration pathway—RCP8.5 and RCP2.6). We found that peatlands continue to act as carbon sinks under both warming scenarios, but their sink capacity will be substantially reduced under the high-warming (RCP8.5) scenario after 2050. Areas where peat production was initially hampered by permafrost and low productivity were found to accumulate more carbon because of the initial warming and moisture-rich environment due to permafrost thaw, higher precipitation and elevated CO2 levels. On the other hand, we project that areas which will experience reduced precipitation rates and those without permafrost will lose more carbon in the near future, particularly peatlands located in the European region and between 45 and 55°N latitude. Overall, we found that rapid global warming could reduce the carbon sink capacity of the northern peatlands in the coming decades. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Climate change Global warming permafrost Zenodo Arctic Global Change Biology 26 7 4119 4133 |
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Open Polar |
collection |
Zenodo |
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ftzenodo |
language |
English |
topic |
basal age carbon accumulation climate change dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) peatland permafrost |
spellingShingle |
basal age carbon accumulation climate change dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) peatland permafrost Chaudhary, Nitin Westermann, Sebastian Lamba, Shubhangi Shurpali, Narasinha Sannel, A. Britta K. Schurgers, Guy Miller, Paul A. Smith, Benjamin Modelling past and future peatland carbon dynamics across the pan-Arctic |
topic_facet |
basal age carbon accumulation climate change dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) peatland permafrost |
description |
The majority of northern peatlands were initiated during the Holocene. Owing to their mass imbalance, they have sequestered huge amounts of carbon in terrestrial ecosystems. Although recent syntheses have filled some knowledge gaps, the extent and remoteness of many peatlands pose challenges to developing reliable regional carbon accumulation estimates from observations. In this work, we employed an individual- and patch-based dynamic global vegetation model (LPJ-GUESS) with peatland and permafrost functionality to quantify long-term carbon accumulation rates in northern peatlands and to assess the effects of historical and projected future climate change on peatland carbon balance. We combined published datasets of peat basal age to form an up-to-date peat inception surface for the pan-Arctic region which we then used to constrain the model. We divided our analysis into two parts, with a focus both on the carbon accumulation changes detected within the observed peatland boundary and at pan-Arctic scale under two contrasting warming scenarios (representative concentration pathway—RCP8.5 and RCP2.6). We found that peatlands continue to act as carbon sinks under both warming scenarios, but their sink capacity will be substantially reduced under the high-warming (RCP8.5) scenario after 2050. Areas where peat production was initially hampered by permafrost and low productivity were found to accumulate more carbon because of the initial warming and moisture-rich environment due to permafrost thaw, higher precipitation and elevated CO2 levels. On the other hand, we project that areas which will experience reduced precipitation rates and those without permafrost will lose more carbon in the near future, particularly peatlands located in the European region and between 45 and 55°N latitude. Overall, we found that rapid global warming could reduce the carbon sink capacity of the northern peatlands in the coming decades. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Chaudhary, Nitin Westermann, Sebastian Lamba, Shubhangi Shurpali, Narasinha Sannel, A. Britta K. Schurgers, Guy Miller, Paul A. Smith, Benjamin |
author_facet |
Chaudhary, Nitin Westermann, Sebastian Lamba, Shubhangi Shurpali, Narasinha Sannel, A. Britta K. Schurgers, Guy Miller, Paul A. Smith, Benjamin |
author_sort |
Chaudhary, Nitin |
title |
Modelling past and future peatland carbon dynamics across the pan-Arctic |
title_short |
Modelling past and future peatland carbon dynamics across the pan-Arctic |
title_full |
Modelling past and future peatland carbon dynamics across the pan-Arctic |
title_fullStr |
Modelling past and future peatland carbon dynamics across the pan-Arctic |
title_full_unstemmed |
Modelling past and future peatland carbon dynamics across the pan-Arctic |
title_sort |
modelling past and future peatland carbon dynamics across the pan-arctic |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
https://zenodo.org/record/3898523 https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15099 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Climate change Global warming permafrost |
genre_facet |
Arctic Climate change Global warming permafrost |
op_source |
Global Change Biology 26(7) 4119-4133 |
op_relation |
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/773421/ https://zenodo.org/communities/nunataryuk https://zenodo.org/record/3898523 https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15099 oai:zenodo.org:3898523 |
op_rights |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15099 |
container_title |
Global Change Biology |
container_volume |
26 |
container_issue |
7 |
container_start_page |
4119 |
op_container_end_page |
4133 |
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1766328800015024128 |