Skip to main content
OSTI.GOVU.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
 

Permafrost Region Greenhouse Gas Budgets Suggest a Weak CO2 Sink and CH4 and N2O Sources, But Magnitudes Differ Between Top-Down and Bottom-Up Methods

Journal Article · · Global Biogeochemical Cycles
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/2023gb007969· OSTI ID:2498353
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [8];  [9];  [10];  [10];  [11];  [4];  [12];  [13];  [14];  [15];  [3];  [16] more »;  [17];  [18];  [19];  [20];  [21];  [22];  [23];  [24];  [25];  [26];  [25];  [27];  [10];  [28];  [29];  [30];  [5];  [31];  [25];  [32];  [25];  [27];  [33] « less
  1. Stockholm Univ. (Sweden)
  2. United Kingdom Meteorological Office, Exeter, Devon (United Kingdom)
  3. California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States). Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
  4. Univ. of Edinburgh, Scotland (United Kingdom)
  5. Finnish Meteorological Inst. (FMI), Helsinki (Finland)
  6. Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena (Germany)
  7. Univ. of Eastern Finland, Kuopio (Finland); Univ. Innsbruck (Austria)
  8. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Canberra, ACT (Australia)
  9. Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Yokohama (Japan)
  10. Institut Pierre Simon Laplace, Gif‐sur‐Yvette (France). Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement; Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), Gif‐sur‐Yvette (France); Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Gif‐sur‐Yvette (France); Univ. of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, Gif‐sur‐Yvette (France); Univ. Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette (France)
  11. Zhejiang Univ., Hangzhou (China)
  12. Univ. of East Anglia, Norwich (United Kingdom)
  13. Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg (Germany)
  14. Univ. of New Hampshire, Durham, NH (United States)
  15. Univ. Paris-Saclay, Palaiseau (France); French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE), Palaiseau (France); AgroParisTech, Palaiseau (France)
  16. Aarhus Univ. (Denmark); Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, Nuuk (Greenland)
  17. Wageningen Univ. (Netherlands)
  18. Univ. of Eastern Finland, Kuopio (Finland)
  19. Woodwell Climate Research Center Falmouth MA USA
  20. National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Tsukuba (Japan); Meteorological Research Inst. (MRI), Tsukuba (Japan)
  21. Univ. of Alberta, Edmonton, AB (Canada)
  22. National Center for Earth Observation University of Edinburgh Edinburgh UK
  23. Research Institute for Humanity and Research, Kyoto (Japan)
  24. Wageningen Univ. (Netherlands); Univ. of Groningen (Netherlands)
  25. Woodwell Climate Research Center, Falmouth, MA (United States)
  26. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)
  27. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  28. Northern Arizona Univ., Flagstaff, AZ (United States)
  29. Norsk Institutt for Luftforskning (NILU), Kjeller (Norway)
  30. Alfred Wegener Inst. for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven (Germany)
  31. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
  32. Univ. of Eastern Finland, Kuopio (Finland); Univ. of Hamburg (Germany)
  33. Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China)
+ Show Author Affiliations
Large stocks of soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) in northern permafrost soils are vulnerable to remobilization under climate change. However, there are large uncertainties in present-day greenhouse gas (GHG) budgets. We compare bottom-up (data-driven upscaling and process-based models) and top-down (atmospheric inversion models) budgets of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) as well as lateral fluxes of C and N across the region over 2000–2020. Bottom-up approaches estimate higher land-to-atmosphere fluxes for all GHGs. Both bottom-up and top-down approaches show a sink of CO2 in natural ecosystems (bottom-up: -29 (-709, 455), top-down: -587 (-862, -312) Tg CO2-C yr-1) and sources of CH4 (bottom-up: 38 (22, 53), top-down: 15 (11, 18) Tg CH4-C y-1) and N2O (bottom-up: 0.7 (0.1, 1.3), top-down: 0.09 (-0.19, 0.37) Tg N2O-N yr-1). The combined global warming potential of all three gases (GWP-100) cannot be distinguished from neutral. Over shorter timescales (GWP-20), the region is a net GHG source because CH4 dominates the total forcing. The net CO2 sink in Boreal forests and wetlands is largely offset by fires and inland water CO2 emissions as well as CH4 emissions from wetlands and inland waters, with a smaller contribution from N2O emissions. Priorities for future research include the representation of inland waters in process-based models and the compilation of process-model ensembles for CH4 and N2O. Discrepancies between bottom-up and top-down methods call for analyses of how prior flux ensembles impact inversion budgets, more and well-distributed in situ GHG measurements and improved resolution in upscaling techniques.
Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER). Earth & Environmental Systems Science (EESS); National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
2498353
Journal Information:
Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Journal Name: Global Biogeochemical Cycles Journal Issue: 10 Vol. 38; ISSN 0886-6236
Publisher:
American Geophysical Union (AGU)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (61)

Permafrost thaw and soil moisture driving CO 2 and CH 4 release from upland tundra journal March 2015
Evaluating two land surface models for Brazil using a full carbon cycle benchmark with uncertainties journal August 2021
Plant responses to elevated CO2 under competing hypotheses of nitrogen and phosphorus limitations journal March 2024
What drives biological nitrogen fixation in high arctic tundra: Moisture or temperature? journal February 2018
Impact of wildfire on permafrost landscapes: A review of recent advances and future prospects journal March 2020
The Arctic Carbon Cycle and Its Response to Changing Climate journal February 2021
Scaling and balancing methane fluxes in a heterogeneous tundra ecosystem of the Lena River Delta journal March 2019
Direct and longer-term carbon emissions from arctic-boreal fires: A short review of recent advances journal October 2021
Northern Hemisphere permafrost map based on TTOP modelling for 2000–2016 at 1 km2 scale journal June 2019
The Collection 6 MODIS burned area mapping algorithm and product journal November 2018
Remote sensing annual dynamics of rapid permafrost thaw disturbances with LandTrendr journal January 2022
Carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide fluxes from a fire chronosequence in subarctic boreal forests of Canada journal December 2017
The future of tundra carbon storage in Greenland – Sensitivity to climate and plant trait changes journal November 2022
Magnitude and Pathways of Increased Nitrous Oxide Emissions from Uplands Following Permafrost Thaw journal July 2018
Soil organic carbon pools in the northern circumpolar permafrost region: SOIL ORGANIC CARBON POOLS journal June 2009
Field information links permafrost carbon to physical vulnerabilities of thawing: C AND N VULERABLITIES OF THAWING journal August 2012
Developments in the MPI‐M Earth System Model version 1.2 (MPI‐ESM1.2) and Its Response to Increasing CO 2 journal April 2019
Representing Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Carbon Interactions in the E3SM Land Model: Development and Global Benchmarking journal July 2019
Natural Lakes Are a Minor Global Source of N 2 O to the Atmosphere journal December 2019
UKESM1: Description and Evaluation of the U.K. Earth System Model journal December 2019
OCO‐2 Satellite‐Imposed Constraints on Terrestrial Biospheric CO 2 Fluxes Over South Asia journal January 2022
How Much of the Earth's Surface is Underlain by Permafrost? journal May 2021
Nitrous Oxide Fluxes in Permafrost Peatlands Remain Negligible After Wildfire and Thermokarst Disturbance journal April 2023
The Net GHG Balance and Budget of the Permafrost Region (2000–2020) From Ecosystem Flux Upscaling journal April 2024
Permafrost Carbon: Progress on Understanding Stocks and Fluxes Across Northern Terrestrial Ecosystems journal February 2024
Geologic methane seeps along boundaries of Arctic permafrost thaw and melting glaciers journal May 2012
Net regional methane sink in High Arctic soils of northeast Greenland journal December 2014
Large N2O emissions from cryoturbated peat soil in tundra journal February 2009
Permafrost is warming at a global scale journal January 2019
Thawing Yedoma permafrost is a neglected nitrous oxide source journal December 2021
Carbon release through abrupt permafrost thaw journal February 2020
The decadal state of the terrestrial carbon cycle: Global retrievals of terrestrial carbon allocation, pools, and residence times journal January 2016
Dependence of the evolution of carbon dynamics in the northern permafrost region on the trajectory of climate change journal March 2018
Large stocks of peatland carbon and nitrogen are vulnerable to permafrost thaw journal August 2020
The importance of hydrology in routing terrestrial carbon to the atmosphere via global streams and rivers journal March 2022
Abrupt permafrost thaw accelerates carbon dioxide and methane release at a tussock tundra site journal September 2022
An Ecoregion-Based Approach to Protecting Half the Terrestrial Realm journal April 2017
Is NPP proportional to GPP? Waring’s hypothesis 20 years on journal May 2019
Warming of subarctic tundra increases emissions of all three important greenhouse gases - carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide journal December 2016
Nongrowing season methane emissions-a significant component of annual emissions across northern ecosystems journal April 2018
Tundra landscape heterogeneity, not interannual variability, controls the decadal regional carbon balance in the Western Russian Arctic journal September 2018
Nitrous oxide emissions from inland waters: Are IPCC estimates too high? journal December 2018
Ecosystem carbon response of an Arctic peatland to simulated permafrost thaw journal February 2019
Statistical upscaling of ecosystem CO 2 fluxes across the terrestrial tundra and boreal domain: Regional patterns and uncertainties journal June 2021
Effects of fire on CO2, CH4, and N2O exchange in a well‐drained Arctic heath ecosystem journal May 2022
Observational constraints reduce model spread but not uncertainty in global wetland methane emission estimates journal May 2023
The role of northern peatlands in the global carbon cycle for the 21st century journal March 2020
Spatial heterogeneity and environmental predictors of permafrost region soil organic carbon stocks journal February 2021
High-Resolution Global Maps of 21st-Century Forest Cover Change journal November 2013
Record-high CO 2 emissions from boreal fires in 2021 journal March 2023
The current state of CO 2 flux chamber studies in the Arctic tundra: A review journal December 2017
Vulnerability of Permafrost Carbon to Climate Change: Implications for the Global Carbon Cycle journal September 2008
An Adaptive Metropolis Algorithm journal April 2001
Identifying Barriers to Estimating Carbon Release From Interacting Feedbacks in a Warming Arctic journal January 2022
Estimated regional CO2 flux and uncertainty based on an ensemble of atmospheric CO2 inversions journal July 2022
Estimated stocks of circumpolar permafrost carbon with quantified uncertainty ranges and identified data gaps journal January 2014
Global fire emissions estimates during 1997–2016 journal September 2017
Gridded fossil CO2 emissions and related O2 combustion consistent with national inventories dataset January 2022
The Global Carbon Project's fossil CO2 emissions dataset dataset January 2022
ESA Biomass Climate Change Initiative (Biomass_cci): Global datasets of forest above-ground biomass for the years 2010, 2017 and 2018, v2 dataset January 2021
Carbon and water cycle analysis across global permafrost domain dataset January 2023

Similar Records

The European land and inland water CO2, CO, CH4 and N2O balance between 2001 and 2005
Journal Article · Sat Dec 31 23:00:00 EST 2011 · Biogeosciences · OSTI ID:1049933

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES