Climate warming may accelerate decomposition of Arctic soil carbon, but few controlled experiments have manipulated the entire active layer. To determine surface-atmosphere fluxes of carbon dioxide and methane under anticipated end-of-century warming, here we used heating rods to warm (by 3.8 °C) to the depth of permafrost in polygonal tundra in $$Utqia\dot{g}vik$$ (formerly Barrow), Alaska and measured fluxes over two growing seasons. We show that ecosystem respiration is ~30% higher in warmed plots than in control plots (0.99 μmol m-2 s-1 versus 0.67 μmol m-2 s-1, p < 0.0001, n = 79). Additionally, the observed temperature sensitivity (Q10 of 2.8) is higher than that imposed for soil in Earth system models or reported by arctic experiments warming only the surface. A shoulder-season warming experiment revealed that rapid snow melt, which is becoming a more common event, can result in large methane emissions that may have otherwise been oxidized to carbon dioxide. Thus, warming promotes greenhouse gas emissions from the whole, deepening active layer and may contribute to climate change amplification.
Torn, Margaret S., et al. "Large emissions of CO<sub>2</sub> and CH<sub>4</sub> due to active-layer warming in Arctic tundra." Nature Communications, vol. 16, no. 1, Jan. 2025. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-54990-9
Torn, Margaret S., Abramoff, Rose Z., Vaughn, Lydia J. S., Chafe, Oriana E., Curtis, J. Bryan, & Zhu, Biao (2025). Large emissions of CO<sub>2</sub> and CH<sub>4</sub> due to active-layer warming in Arctic tundra. Nature Communications, 16(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-54990-9
Torn, Margaret S., Abramoff, Rose Z., Vaughn, Lydia J. S., et al., "Large emissions of CO<sub>2</sub> and CH<sub>4</sub> due to active-layer warming in Arctic tundra," Nature Communications 16, no. 1 (2025), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-54990-9
@article{osti_2530320,
author = {Torn, Margaret S. and Abramoff, Rose Z. and Vaughn, Lydia J. S. and Chafe, Oriana E. and Curtis, J. Bryan and Zhu, Biao},
title = {Large emissions of CO<sub>2</sub> and CH<sub>4</sub> due to active-layer warming in Arctic tundra},
annote = {Climate warming may accelerate decomposition of Arctic soil carbon, but few controlled experiments have manipulated the entire active layer. To determine surface-atmosphere fluxes of carbon dioxide and methane under anticipated end-of-century warming, here we used heating rods to warm (by 3.8 °C) to the depth of permafrost in polygonal tundra in $Utqia\dot{g}vik$ (formerly Barrow), Alaska and measured fluxes over two growing seasons. We show that ecosystem respiration is ~30% higher in warmed plots than in control plots (0.99 μmol m-2 s-1 versus 0.67 μmol m-2 s-1, p < 0.0001, n = 79). Additionally, the observed temperature sensitivity (Q10 of 2.8) is higher than that imposed for soil in Earth system models or reported by arctic experiments warming only the surface. A shoulder-season warming experiment revealed that rapid snow melt, which is becoming a more common event, can result in large methane emissions that may have otherwise been oxidized to carbon dioxide. Thus, warming promotes greenhouse gas emissions from the whole, deepening active layer and may contribute to climate change amplification.},
doi = {10.1038/s41467-024-54990-9},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/2530320},
journal = {Nature Communications},
issn = {ISSN 2041-1723},
number = {1},
volume = {16},
place = {United States},
publisher = {Nature Publishing Group},
year = {2025},
month = {01}}
Next Generation Ecosystems Experiment - Arctic, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (US); NGEE Arctic, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)https://doi.org/10.5440/1129476