Large loss of CO₂ in winter observed across the northern permafrost region

Susan M Natali¹, Jennifer D Watts¹, Brendan M Rogers¹, Stefano Potter¹, Sarah M Ludwig¹, Anne-Katrin Selbmann², Patrick F Sullivan³, Benjamin W Abbott⁴, Kyle A Arndt⁵, Leah Birch¹, Mats P Björkman⁶, A Anthony Bloom⁷, Gerardo Celis⁸, Torben R Christensen⁹, Casper T Christiansen¹⁰, Roisin Commane¹¹, Elisabeth J Cooper¹², Patrick Crill¹³, Claudia Czimczik¹⁴, Sergey Davydov¹⁵, Jinyang Du¹⁶, Jocelyn E Egan¹⁷, Bo Elberling¹⁸, Eugenie S Euskirchen¹⁹, Thomas Friborg²⁰, Hélène Genet¹⁹, Mathias Göckede²¹, Jordan P Goodrich^{5

22}, Paul Grogan²³, Manuel Helbig^{24

25}, Elchin E Jafarov²⁶, Julie D Jastrow²⁷, Aram A M Kalhori⁵, Yongwon Kim²⁸, John Kimball¹⁶, Lars Kutzbach²⁹, Mark J Lara³⁰, Klaus S Larsen²⁰, Bang-Yong Lee³¹, Zhihua Liu³², Michael M Loranty³³, Magnus Lund⁹, Massimo Lupascu³⁴, Nima Madani⁷, Avni Malhotra³⁵, Roser Matamala²⁷, Jack McFarland³⁶, A David McGuire¹⁹, Anders Michelsen³⁷, Christina Minions¹, Walter C Oechel^{5

38}, David Olefeldt³⁹, Frans-Jan W Parmentier^{40

41}, Norbert Pirk^{40

41}, Ben Poulter⁴², William Quinton⁴³, Fereidoun Rezanezhad⁴⁴, David Risk⁴⁵, Torsten Sachs⁴⁶, Kevin Schaefer⁴⁷, Niels M Schmidt⁴⁸, Edward A G Schuur⁸, Philipp R Semenchuk⁴⁹, Gaius Shaver⁵⁰, Oliver Sonnentag²⁵, Gregory Starr⁵¹, Claire C Treat⁵², Mark P Waldrop³⁶, Yihui Wang⁵, Jeffrey Welker^{53

54}, Christian Wille⁴⁶, Xiaofeng Xu⁵, Zhen Zhang⁵⁵, Qianlai Zhuang⁵⁶, Donatella Zona^{5

57}

Affiliations

¹ Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, MA 02540, USA.
² University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany.
³ Environment and Natural Resources Institute, University of Alaska, Anchorage, AK 99508. USA.
⁴ Brigham Young University, Department of Plant and Wildlife Sciences, Provo, UT 84602, USA.
⁵ Department of Biology, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182, USA.
⁶ Department of Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg, PO Box 460, SE-405 30 Göteborg, Sweden.
⁷ Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA.
⁸ Center for Ecosystem Science and Society, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ 86001, USA.
⁹ Department of Bioscience, Arctic Research Centre, Aarhus University, Frederiksborgvej 399, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark.
¹⁰ NORCE Norwegian Research Centre, Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Bergen, Norway.
¹¹ Dept. of Earth & Environmental Sciences of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964, USA.
¹² Department of Arctic and Marine Biology, Faculty of Biosciences, Fisheries and Economics, UiT. The Arctic University of Norway, N9037 Tromsø, Norway.
¹³ Dept. of Geological Sciences and Bolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm University, Sweden.
¹⁴ Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA.
¹⁵ Northeast Science Station, Pacific Geographical Institute, Cherskii, Russia.
¹⁶ Numerical Terradynamic Simulation Group, W.A. Franke College of Forestry & Conservation, University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812, USA.
¹⁷ Department of Earth Sciences, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada.
¹⁸ Center for Permafrost (CENPERM), Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Øster Voldgade 10, DK-1350 Copenhagen, Denmark.
¹⁹ University of Alaska Fairbanks, Institute of Arctic Biology, Fairbanks, AK 99775, USA.
²⁰ Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
²¹ Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany.
²² Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
²³ Department of Biology, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada.
²⁴ McMaster University, School of Geography and Earth Sciences, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4K1.
²⁵ Université de Montréal, Département de géographie & Centre d'études nordiques, 520 chemin de la Côte Sainte Catherine, Montréal, QC H2V 2B8.
²⁶ Earth and Environmental Sciences Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA.
²⁷ Environmental Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439, USA.
²⁸ International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, AK 99775, USA.
²⁹ Institute of Soil Science, Universät Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.
³⁰ Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
³¹ Korea Polar Research Institute (KOPRI), Incheon 21990, Republic of Korea).
³² CAS Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Management, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, 110016, China.
³³ Department of Geography, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY 13346, USA.
³⁴ Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117570.
³⁵ Department of Earth System Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305.
³⁶ Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA.
³⁷ Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
³⁸ University of Exeter, Exeter, UK.
³⁹ University of Alberta, Department of Renewable Resources, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
⁴⁰ Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
⁴¹ Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
⁴² NASA GSFC, Biospheric Sciences Lab., Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA.
⁴³ Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
⁴⁴ Ecohydrology Research Group, Water Institute and Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada.
⁴⁵ St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada.
⁴⁶ GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Telegrafenberg, Potsdam, Germany.
⁴⁷ National Snow and Ice Data Center, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
⁴⁸ Arctic Research Centre, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Roskilde, Denmark.
⁴⁹ Division of Conservation Biology, Vegetation Ecology and Landscape Ecology, Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research, Rennweg 14, 1030 Vienna, Austria.
⁵⁰ The Ecosystems Center, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA.
⁵¹ Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA.
⁵² Department of Environmental and Biological Science, University of Eastern Finland, Finland.
⁵³ Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alaska Anchorage, Anchorage, AK 99508, USA.
⁵⁴ Ecology and Genetics Research Unit, University of Oulu, Finland and UArctic.
⁵⁵ Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
⁵⁶ Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.
⁵⁷ University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.

PMID: 35069807
PMCID: PMC8781060
DOI: 10.1038/s41558-019-0592-8

Large loss of CO₂ in winter observed across the northern permafrost region

Susan M Natali et al. Nat Clim Chang. 2019 Nov.

. 2019 Nov:9:852-857.

doi: 10.1038/s41558-019-0592-8. Epub 2019 Oct 21.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, MA 02540, USA.
² University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany.
³ Environment and Natural Resources Institute, University of Alaska, Anchorage, AK 99508. USA.
⁴ Brigham Young University, Department of Plant and Wildlife Sciences, Provo, UT 84602, USA.
⁵ Department of Biology, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182, USA.
⁶ Department of Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg, PO Box 460, SE-405 30 Göteborg, Sweden.
⁷ Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA.
⁸ Center for Ecosystem Science and Society, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ 86001, USA.
⁹ Department of Bioscience, Arctic Research Centre, Aarhus University, Frederiksborgvej 399, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark.
¹⁰ NORCE Norwegian Research Centre, Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Bergen, Norway.
¹¹ Dept. of Earth & Environmental Sciences of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964, USA.
¹² Department of Arctic and Marine Biology, Faculty of Biosciences, Fisheries and Economics, UiT. The Arctic University of Norway, N9037 Tromsø, Norway.
¹³ Dept. of Geological Sciences and Bolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm University, Sweden.
¹⁴ Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA.
¹⁵ Northeast Science Station, Pacific Geographical Institute, Cherskii, Russia.
¹⁶ Numerical Terradynamic Simulation Group, W.A. Franke College of Forestry & Conservation, University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812, USA.
¹⁷ Department of Earth Sciences, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada.
¹⁸ Center for Permafrost (CENPERM), Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Øster Voldgade 10, DK-1350 Copenhagen, Denmark.
¹⁹ University of Alaska Fairbanks, Institute of Arctic Biology, Fairbanks, AK 99775, USA.
²⁰ Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
²¹ Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany.
²² Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
²³ Department of Biology, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada.
²⁴ McMaster University, School of Geography and Earth Sciences, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4K1.
²⁵ Université de Montréal, Département de géographie & Centre d'études nordiques, 520 chemin de la Côte Sainte Catherine, Montréal, QC H2V 2B8.
²⁶ Earth and Environmental Sciences Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA.
²⁷ Environmental Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439, USA.
²⁸ International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, AK 99775, USA.
²⁹ Institute of Soil Science, Universät Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.
³⁰ Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
³¹ Korea Polar Research Institute (KOPRI), Incheon 21990, Republic of Korea).
³² CAS Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Management, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, 110016, China.
³³ Department of Geography, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY 13346, USA.
³⁴ Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117570.
³⁵ Department of Earth System Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305.
³⁶ Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA.
³⁷ Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
³⁸ University of Exeter, Exeter, UK.
³⁹ University of Alberta, Department of Renewable Resources, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
⁴⁰ Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
⁴¹ Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
⁴² NASA GSFC, Biospheric Sciences Lab., Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA.
⁴³ Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
⁴⁴ Ecohydrology Research Group, Water Institute and Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada.
⁴⁵ St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada.
⁴⁶ GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Telegrafenberg, Potsdam, Germany.
⁴⁷ National Snow and Ice Data Center, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
⁴⁸ Arctic Research Centre, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Roskilde, Denmark.
⁴⁹ Division of Conservation Biology, Vegetation Ecology and Landscape Ecology, Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research, Rennweg 14, 1030 Vienna, Austria.
⁵⁰ The Ecosystems Center, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA.
⁵¹ Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA.
⁵² Department of Environmental and Biological Science, University of Eastern Finland, Finland.
⁵³ Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alaska Anchorage, Anchorage, AK 99508, USA.
⁵⁴ Ecology and Genetics Research Unit, University of Oulu, Finland and UArctic.
⁵⁵ Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
⁵⁶ Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.
⁵⁷ University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.

PMID: 35069807
PMCID: PMC8781060
DOI: 10.1038/s41558-019-0592-8

Abstract

Recent warming in the Arctic, which has been amplified during the winter^1-3, greatly enhances microbial decomposition of soil organic matter and subsequent release of carbon dioxide (CO₂)⁴. However, the amount of CO₂ released in winter is highly uncertain and has not been well represented by ecosystem models or by empirically-based estimates^5,6. Here we synthesize regional in situ observations of CO₂ flux from arctic and boreal soils to assess current and future winter carbon losses from the northern permafrost domain. We estimate a contemporary loss of 1662 Tg C yr^-1 from the permafrost region during the winter season (October through April). This loss is greater than the average growing season carbon uptake for this region estimated from process models (-1032 Tg C yr^-1). Extending model predictions to warmer conditions in 2100 indicates that winter CO₂ emissions will increase 17% under a moderate mitigation scenario-Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5-and 41% under business-as-usual emissions scenario-RCP 8.5. Our results provide a new baseline for winter CO₂ emissions from northern terrestrial regions and indicate that enhanced soil CO₂ loss due to winter warming may offset growing season carbon uptake under future climatic conditions.

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Figures

**Fig. 1.. Distribution of *in situ* data included in this winter CO₂ flux synthesis.**
(a) Locations of *in situ* winter CO₂ flux data (yellow circles) in this synthesis include (b) upland and wetland sites in boreal and tundra biomes located (c) within the northern permafrost region. Violin plots (b,c) depict magnitude and distribution density (width; dots are monthly aggregated data) of *in situ* data used in our machine-learning model.

**Fig. 2.. Effect of soil temperature on CO₂ release from soils.**
(a) Relationships between *in situ* soil temperature (~ 10 cm average depth) and CO₂ fluxes and (b) temperature and CO₂ released from lab incubations. Shading represents the standard deviation of an exponential model, which, for *in situ* fluxes, was fit to mean CO₂ flux from each sample location (symbols shown with standard error). Note that the different soil temperature scales between panels reflect data ranges.

**Fig. 3.. Pan-Arctic winter CO₂ emissions under current and future climate scenarios.**
(a) Average annual winter (October - April) CO₂ emissions estimated for the permafrost region for the baseline years 2003–2017. Cumulative winter CO₂ fluxes under (b) RCP 4.5 and (c) RCP 8.5 scenarios over an 80-year period (2017–2057 and 2057–2097). Fluxes are reported on an annual basis (g CO₂-C m⁻² yr⁻¹).

**Fig. 4.. Projected annual CO₂ emissions during the winter for the northern permafrost region.**
Solid lines represent BRT modeled results through 2100 under RCP 4.5 (blue solid line) and RCP 8.5 (red solid line), with bootstrapped 95% confidence intervals indicated by shading. For reference, CMIP5 ensemble respiration for RCP 4.5 and 8.5 are also shown (dashed lines).

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References

1. Huang J. Recently amplified arctic warming has contributed to a continual global warming trend. Nat. Clim. Change 7, 875–879 (2017).
1. Koenigk T. et al. Arctic climate change in 21st century CMIP5 simulations with EC-Earth. Clim. Dyn 40, 2719–2743 (2013).
1. Cohen J, Screen JA, Furtado JC, Barlow M, et al. Recent Arctic amplification and extreme mid-latitude weather. Nature Geosci. 7, 627–637 (2014).
1. Schadel C, Bader MK-F, Schuur EAG, Biasi C, Bracho R. et al. Potential carbon emissions dominated by carbon dioxide from thawed permafrost soils. Nat. Clim. Change 6, 950–953 (2016).
1. Fisher JB et al. Carbon cycle uncertainty in the Alaskan Arctic. Biogeosciences 11, 4271–4288 (2014).

Methods References

1. Brown J, Ferrians O, Heginbottom J & Melnikov E. Circum-Arctic map of permafrost and ground-ice conditions, version 2 (2002).
1. Brodzik MJ, Billingsley B, Haran T, Raup B & Savoie MH EASE-Grid 2.0: Incremental but significant improvements for Earth-gridded data sets. ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Information 1, 32–45 (2012).
1. R Core Team R: A language and environment for statistical computing. (2016).
1. Ridgeway G. Generalized Boosted Models: A guide to the gbm package. 1–12 (2007).
1. Elith J, Leathwick JR & Hastie T. A working guide to boosted regression trees. J. Anim. Ecol, 802–813 (2008). - PubMed

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Large loss of CO₂ in winter observed across the northern permafrost region

Affiliations

Large loss of CO₂ in winter observed across the northern permafrost region

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

Figures

References

Methods References

Grants and funding

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources

Miscellaneous