Methane Production Pathway Regulated Proximally by Substrate Availability and Distally by Temperature in a High-Latitude Mire Complex
Abstract
Projected 21st century changes in high-latitude climate are expected to have significant impacts on permafrost thaw, which could cause substantial increases in emissions to the atmosphere of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4, which has a global warming potential 28 times larger than CO2 over a 100-year horizon). However, predicted CH4 emission rates are very uncertain due to difficulties in modeling complex interactions among hydrological, thermal, biogeochemical, and plant processes. Methanogenic production pathways (i.e., acetoclastic [AM] and hydrogenotrophic [HM]) and the magnitude of CH4 emissions may both change as permafrost thaws, but a mechanistic analysis of controls on such shifts in CH4 dynamics is lacking. In this study, we reproduced observed shifts in CH4 emissions and production pathways with a comprehensive biogeochemical model (ecosys) at the Stordalen Mire in subarctic Sweden. Our results demonstrate that soil temperature changes differently affect AM and HM substrate availability, which regulates magnitudes of AM, HM, and thereby net CH4 emissions. We predict very large landscape-scale, vertical, and temporal variations in the modeled HM fraction, highlighting that measurement strategies for metrics that compare CH4 production pathways could benefit from model informed scale of temporal and spatial variance. Finally, our findings suggest that the warming andmore »
- Authors:
-
[1];
[1];
[2];
[3];
[4]
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Rochester Inst. of Technology, Rochester, NY (United States)
- Stockholm Univ. (Sweden)
- Univ. of Alberta, Edmonton, AB (Canada)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1581106
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1571704
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231; SC0016440; AC02‐05CH11231
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Geophysical Research. Biogeosciences
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 124; Journal Issue: 10; Journal ID: ISSN 2169-8953
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical Union
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; methane cycling; permafrost carbon; climate carbon feedbacks
Citation Formats
Chang, Kuang‐Yu, Riley, William J., Brodie, Eoin L., McCalley, Carmody K., Crill, Patrick M., and Grant, Robert F. Methane Production Pathway Regulated Proximally by Substrate Availability and Distally by Temperature in a High-Latitude Mire Complex. United States: N. p., 2019.
Web. doi:10.1029/2019jg005355.
Chang, Kuang‐Yu, Riley, William J., Brodie, Eoin L., McCalley, Carmody K., Crill, Patrick M., & Grant, Robert F. Methane Production Pathway Regulated Proximally by Substrate Availability and Distally by Temperature in a High-Latitude Mire Complex. United States. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019jg005355
Chang, Kuang‐Yu, Riley, William J., Brodie, Eoin L., McCalley, Carmody K., Crill, Patrick M., and Grant, Robert F. Thu .
"Methane Production Pathway Regulated Proximally by Substrate Availability and Distally by Temperature in a High-Latitude Mire Complex". United States. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019jg005355. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1581106.
@article{osti_1581106,
title = {Methane Production Pathway Regulated Proximally by Substrate Availability and Distally by Temperature in a High-Latitude Mire Complex},
author = {Chang, Kuang‐Yu and Riley, William J. and Brodie, Eoin L. and McCalley, Carmody K. and Crill, Patrick M. and Grant, Robert F.},
abstractNote = {Projected 21st century changes in high-latitude climate are expected to have significant impacts on permafrost thaw, which could cause substantial increases in emissions to the atmosphere of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4, which has a global warming potential 28 times larger than CO2 over a 100-year horizon). However, predicted CH4 emission rates are very uncertain due to difficulties in modeling complex interactions among hydrological, thermal, biogeochemical, and plant processes. Methanogenic production pathways (i.e., acetoclastic [AM] and hydrogenotrophic [HM]) and the magnitude of CH4 emissions may both change as permafrost thaws, but a mechanistic analysis of controls on such shifts in CH4 dynamics is lacking. In this study, we reproduced observed shifts in CH4 emissions and production pathways with a comprehensive biogeochemical model (ecosys) at the Stordalen Mire in subarctic Sweden. Our results demonstrate that soil temperature changes differently affect AM and HM substrate availability, which regulates magnitudes of AM, HM, and thereby net CH4 emissions. We predict very large landscape-scale, vertical, and temporal variations in the modeled HM fraction, highlighting that measurement strategies for metrics that compare CH4 production pathways could benefit from model informed scale of temporal and spatial variance. Finally, our findings suggest that the warming and wetting trends projected in northern peatlands could enhance peatland AM fraction and CH4 emissions even without further permafrost degradation.},
doi = {10.1029/2019jg005355},
journal = {Journal of Geophysical Research. Biogeosciences},
number = 10,
volume = 124,
place = {United States},
year = {2019},
month = {10}
}
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Figures / Tables:
Figure 1: Schematic diagram of the sampling sites at Stordalen Mire, extracted from Chang et al. (2019). Three distinct habitats are present at the Mire: intact permafrost palsa with a shallow active layer, partly thawed bog with a deeper active layer and a variable water table, and fen with amore »
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