0000000000642474

AUTHOR

Carolina Voigt

Statistical upscaling of ecosystem CO2 fluxes across the terrestrial tundra and boreal domain: Regional patterns and uncertainties

The regional variability in tundra and boreal carbon dioxide (CO2) fluxes can be high, complicating efforts to quantify sink-source patterns across the entire region. Statistical models are increasingly used to predict (i.e., upscale) CO2 fluxes across large spatial domains, but the reliability of different modeling techniques, each with different specifications and assumptions, has not been assessed in detail. Here, we compile eddy covariance and chamber measurements of annual and growing season CO2 fluxes of gross primary productivity (GPP), ecosystem respiration (ER), and net ecosystem exchange (NEE) during 1990–2015 from 148 terrestrial high-latitude (i.e., tundra and boreal) sites to a…

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Large stocks of peatland carbon and nitrogen are vulnerable to permafrost thaw

Significance Over many millennia, northern peatlands have accumulated large amounts of carbon and nitrogen, thus cooling the global climate. Over shorter timescales, peatland disturbances can trigger losses of peat and release of greenhouses gases. Despite their importance to the global climate, peatlands remain poorly mapped, and the vulnerability of permafrost peatlands to warming is uncertain. This study compiles over 7,000 field observations to present a data-driven map of northern peatlands and their carbon and nitrogen stocks. We use these maps to model the impact of permafrost thaw on peatlands and find that warming will likely shift the greenhouse gas balance of northern peatlands. …

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Ecosystem carbon response of an Arctic peatland to simulated permafrost thaw

Permafrost peatlands are biogeochemical hot spots in the Arctic as they store vast amounts of carbon. Permafrost thaw could release part of these long-term immobile carbon stocks as the greenhouse gases (GHGs) carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and methane (CH 4 ) to the atmosphere, but how much, at which time-span and as which gaseous carbon species is still highly uncertain. Here we assess the effect of permafrost thaw on GHG dynamics under different moisture and vegetation scenarios in a permafrost peatland. A novel experimental approach using intact plant–soil systems (mesocosms) allowed us to simulate permafrost thaw under near-natural conditions. We monitored GHG flux dynamics via high-resolution…

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A review of the importance of mineral nitrogen cycling in the plant-soil-microbe system of permafrost-affected soils : changing the paradigm

The paradigm that permafrost-affected soils show restricted mineral nitrogen (N) cycling in favor of organic N compounds is based on the observation that net N mineralization rates in these cold climates are negligible. However, we find here that this perception is wrong. By synthesizing published data on N cycling in the plant-soil-microbe system of permafrost ecosystems we show that gross ammonification and nitrification rates in active layers were of similar magnitude and showed a similar dependence on soil organic carbon (C) and total N concentrations as observed in temperate and tropical systems. Moreover, high protein depolymerization rates and only marginal effects of C:N stoichiomet…

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A globally relevant stock of soil nitrogen in the Yedoma permafrost domain

AbstractNitrogen regulates multiple aspects of the permafrost climate feedback, including plant growth, organic matter decomposition, and the production of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide. Despite its importance, current estimates of permafrost nitrogen are highly uncertain. Here, we compiled a dataset of >2000 samples to quantify nitrogen stocks in the Yedoma domain, a region with organic-rich permafrost that contains ~25% of all permafrost carbon. We estimate that the Yedoma domain contains 41.2 gigatons of nitrogen down to ~20 metre for the deepest unit, which increases the previous estimate for the entire permafrost zone by ~46%. Approximately 90% of this nitrogen (37 gigaton…

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The ABCflux database: Arctic-Boreal CO<sub>2</sub> flux observations and ancillary information aggregated to monthly time steps across terrestrial ecosystems

Abstract. Past efforts to synthesize and quantify the magnitude and change in carbon dioxide (CO2) fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems across the rapidly warming Arctic-Boreal Zone (ABZ) have provided valuable information, but were limited in their geographical and temporal coverage. Furthermore, these efforts have been based on data aggregated over varying time periods, often with only minimal site ancillary data, thus limiting their potential to be used in large-scale carbon budget assessments. To bridge these gaps, we developed a standardized monthly database of Arctic-Boreal CO2 fluxes (ABCflux) that aggregates in-situ measurements of terrestrial net ecosystem CO2 exchange and its derived …

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Nitrous oxide fluxes from permafrost regions

This dataset is a synthesis of published nitrous oxide (N2O) fluxes from permafrost-affected soils in Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine permafrost regions. The data includes mean N2O flux rates measured under field (in situ) conditions and in intact plant-soil systems (mesocosms) under near-field conditions. The dataset further includes explanatory environmental parameters such as meteorological data, soil physical-chemical properties, as well as site and experimental information. Data has been synthesized from published studies (see 'Further details'), and in some cases the authors of published studies have been contacted for additional site-level information. The dataset includes studies publ…

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Dataset of a globally relevant stock of soil nitrogen in the Yedoma permafrost domain

This dataset merges nitrogen data from the Yedoma domain. It includes numerous fieldwork campaigns, which take place since 1998. In total 467 samples from the active layer (seasonally thawed layer), 175 samples from perennially frozen Holocene cover deposits, 479 samples from thermokarst deposits in drained thermokarst, 175 in-situ thawed, diagenetically (anaerobic microbial decomposition possible during unfrozen phase) altered Yedoma deposits (called Taberite), and 917 samples from frozen Yedoma deposits are included. Moreover it includes a NH4+ and NO3- quantification basing on of 658 samples, including 378 data points for NH4+ (active layer, 93; Holocene cover, 108; thermokarst sediment,…

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