Vulnerability of Permafrost Carbon to Climate Change: Implications for the Global Carbon Cycle
Edward A. G. Schuur,James G. Bockheim,Josep G. Canadell,Eugénie S. Euskirchen,Christopher B. Field,Sergey Goryachkin,Stefan Hagemann,Peter Kuhry,Peter M. Lafleur,Hanna Lee,Galina Mazhitova,Frederick E. Nelson,Annette Rinke,Vladimir E. Romanovsky,Nikolay I. Shiklomanov,Charles Tarnocai,Sergey Venevsky,Jason G. Vogel,Sergei Zimov +18 more
TLDR
In this article, the authors present an overview of the global permafrost C pool and of the processes that might transfer this C into the atmosphere, as well as the associated ecosystem changes that occur with thawing.Abstract:
Thawing permafrost and the resulting microbial decomposition of previously frozen organic carbon (C) is one of the most significant potential feedbacks from terrestrial ecosystems to the atmosphere in a changing climate. In this article we present an overview of the global permafrost C pool and of the processes that might transfer this C into the atmosphere, as well as the associated ecosystem changes that occur with thawing. We show that accounting for C stored deep in the permafrost more than doubles previous high-latitude inventory estimates, with this new estimate equivalent to twice the atmospheric C pool. The thawing of permafrost with warming occurs both gradually and catastrophically, exposing organic C to microbial decomposition. Other aspects of ecosystem dynamics can be altered by climate change along with thawing permafrost, such as growing season length, plant growth rates and species composition, and ecosystem energy exchange. However, these processes do not appear to be able to com...read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Persistence of soil organic matter as an ecosystem property
Michael W. I. Schmidt,Margaret S. Torn,Margaret S. Torn,Samuel Abiven,Thorsten Dittmar,Thorsten Dittmar,Georg Guggenberger,Ivan A. Janssens,Markus Kleber,Ingrid Kögel-Knabner,Johannes Lehmann,David A. C. Manning,Paolo Nannipieri,Daniel P. Rasse,Steve Weiner,Susan E. Trumbore +15 more
TL;DR: In this article, a new generation of experiments and soil carbon models were proposed to predict the SOM response to global warming, and they showed that molecular structure alone alone does not control SOM stability.
Journal ArticleDOI
Climate change and the permafrost carbon feedback
Edward A. G. Schuur,A. D. McGuire,Christina Schädel,Christina Schädel,Guido Grosse,Jennifer W. Harden,Daniel J. Hayes,Gustaf Hugelius,Charles D. Koven,Peter Kuhry,David M. Lawrence,Susan M. Natali,David Olefeldt,Vladimir E. Romanovsky,Kevin Schaefer,Merritt R. Turetsky,Claire C. Treat,Jorien E. Vonk +17 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors find that current evidence suggests a gradual and prolonged release of greenhouse gas emissions in a warming climate and present a research strategy with which to target poorly understood aspects of permafrost carbon dynamics.
Journal ArticleDOI
Soil organic carbon pools in the northern circumpolar permafrost region
Charles Tarnocai,Josep G. Canadell,Edward A. G. Schuur,Peter Kuhry,Galina Mazhitova,Sergei Zimov +5 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors reported a new estimate of the carbon pools in soils of the northern permafrost region, including deeper layers and pools not accounted for in previous analyses.
Journal ArticleDOI
Estimated stocks of circumpolar permafrost carbon with quantified uncertainty ranges and identified data gaps
Gustaf Hugelius,Jens Strauss,Sebastian Zubrzycki,Jennifer W. Harden,Edward A. G. Schuur,Edward A. G. Schuur,Chien-Lu Ping,Lutz Schirrmeister,Guido Grosse,Gary J. Michaelson,Charles D. Koven,Jonathan A. O'Donnell,Bo Elberling,Umakant Mishra,Philip Camill,Zicheng Yu,Juri Palmtag,Peter Kuhry +17 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors presented revised estimates of permafrost organic carbon stocks, including quantitative uncertainty estimates, in the 0-3 m depth range in soils as well as for sediments deeper than 3 m in deltaic deposits of major rivers and in the Yedoma region of Siberia and Alaska.
Journal ArticleDOI
The effect of permafrost thaw on old carbon release and net carbon exchange from tundra
Edward A. G. Schuur,Jason G. Vogel,Kathryn G. Crummer,Hanna Lee,James O. Sickman,T. E. Osterkamp +5 more
TL;DR: Net ecosystem carbon exchange and the radiocarbon age of ecosystem respiration in a tundra landscape undergoing permafrost thaw is measured to determine the influence of old carbon loss on ecosystem carbon balance and it is found that areas that thawed over the past 15 years had 40 per cent more annual losses than minimally thawed areas, but had overall net ecosystem carbon uptake as increased plant growth offset these losses.
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