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Title: Methane emissions proportional to permafrost carbon thawed in Arctic lakes since the 1950s

Journal Article · · Nature Geoscience
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2795· OSTI ID:1776496
 [1];  [2];  [1];  [3];  [1];  [4];  [5]
  1. Univ. of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK (United States)
  2. Alaska Dept. of Natural Resources, Fairbanks, AK (United States)
  3. Alfred Wegener Inst. Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Potsdam (Germany); Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg (Germany)
  4. Florida State Univ., Tallahassee, FL (United States)
  5. Alfred Wegener Inst. Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Potsdam (Germany)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Permafrost thaw exposes previously frozen soil organic matter to microbial decomposition. This process generates methane and carbon dioxide, and thereby fuels a positive feedback process that leads to further warming and thaw. Despite widespread permafrost degradation during the past ~40 years, the degree to which permafrost thaw may be contributing to a feedback between warming and thaw in recent decades is not well understood. Radiocarbon evidence of modern emissions of ancient permafrost carbon is also sparse. Here we combine radiocarbon dating of lake bubble trace-gas methane (113 measurements) and soil organic carbon (289 measurements) for lakes in Alaska, Canada, Sweden and Siberia with numerical modelling of thaw and remote sensing of thermokarst shore expansion. Methane emissions from thermokarst areas of lakes that have expanded over the past 60 years were directly proportional to the mass of soil carbon inputs to the lakes from the erosion of thawing permafrost. Here, radiocarbon dating indicates that methane age from lakes is nearly identical to the age of permafrost soil carbon thawing around them. Based on this evidence of landscape-scale permafrost carbon feedback, we estimate that 0.2 to 2.5 Pg permafrost carbon was released as methane and carbon dioxide in thermokarst expansion zones of pan-Arctic lakes during the past 60 years.

Research Organization:
Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0010580
OSTI ID:
1776496
Journal Information:
Nature Geoscience, Vol. 9, Issue 9; ISSN 1752-0894
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Vulnerable yet relevant: the two dimensions of climate-related financial disclosure journal November 2017
Arctic Amplification Response to Individual Climate Drivers journal July 2019
Increasing Organic Carbon Biolability With Depth in Yedoma Permafrost: Ramifications for Future Climate Change journal July 2019
Seasonal Sources of Whole‐Lake CH 4 and CO 2 Emissions From Interior Alaskan Thermokarst Lakes journal May 2019
Limited contribution of permafrost carbon to methane release from thawing peatlands journal June 2017
Beat frequency quartz-enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy for fast and calibration-free continuous trace-gas monitoring journal May 2017
21st-century modeled permafrost carbon emissions accelerated by abrupt thaw beneath lakes journal August 2018
Deglacial mobilization of pre-aged terrestrial carbon from degrading permafrost journal September 2018
Remote sensing quantifies widespread abundance of permafrost region disturbances across the Arctic and Subarctic journal December 2018
Greenhouse gas emissions from diverse Arctic Alaskan lakes are dominated by young carbon journal January 2018
Methane production as key to the greenhouse gas budget of thawing permafrost journal March 2018
Carbon release through abrupt permafrost thaw journal February 2020
Strong geologic methane emissions from discontinuous terrestrial permafrost in the Mackenzie Delta, Canada journal July 2017
A major sea-level drop briefly precedes the Toarcian oceanic anoxic event: implication for Early Jurassic climate and carbon cycle journal August 2019
A near-infrared C 2 H 2 /CH 4 dual-gas sensor system combining off-axis integrated-cavity output spectroscopy and frequency-division-multiplexing-based wavelength modulation spectroscopy journal January 2019
Solar UV radiation in a changing world: roles of cryosphere–land–water–atmosphere interfaces in global biogeochemical cycles journal January 2019
Abundant pre-industrial carbon detected in Canadian Arctic headwaters: implications for the permafrost carbon feedback journal February 2018
Minor contribution of small thaw ponds to the pools of carbon and methane in the inland waters of the permafrost-affected part of the Western Siberian Lowland journal March 2018
First evidence for cold-adapted anaerobic oxidation of methane in deep sediments of thermokarst lakes journal March 2019
Assessment of methane and carbon dioxide emissions in two sub-basins of a small acidic bog lake artificially divided 30 years ago journal September 2018
Toward understanding the contribution of waterbodies to the methane emissions of a permafrost landscape on a regional scale-A case study from the Mackenzie Delta, Canada journal May 2018
Rapid thermokarst evolution during the mid-Holocene in Central Yakutia, Russia journal May 2017
Size Distributions of Arctic Waterbodies Reveal Consistent Relations in Their Statistical Moments in Space and Time journal January 2019
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