Whole-soil warming leads to substantial soil carbon emission in an alpine grassland

Ying Chen, Wenkuan Qin, Qiufang Zhang, Xudong Wang, Jiguang Feng, Mengguang Han, Yanhui Hou, Hongyang Zhao, Zhenhua Zhang, Jin-Sheng He, Margaret S. Torn and Biao Zhu ()
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Ying Chen: Peking University
Wenkuan Qin: Peking University
Qiufang Zhang: Peking University
Xudong Wang: Peking University
Jiguang Feng: Peking University
Mengguang Han: Peking University
Yanhui Hou: Peking University
Hongyang Zhao: Peking University
Zhenhua Zhang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Jin-Sheng He: Peking University
Margaret S. Torn: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Biao Zhu: Peking University

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract The sensitivity of soil organic carbon (SOC) decomposition in seasonally frozen soils, such as alpine ecosystems, to climate warming is a major uncertainty in global carbon cycling. Here we measure soil CO2 emission during four years (2018–2021) from the whole-soil warming experiment (4 °C for the top 1 m) in an alpine grassland ecosystem. We find that whole-soil warming stimulates total and SOC-derived CO2 efflux by 26% and 37%, respectively, but has a minor effect on root-derived CO2 efflux. Moreover, experimental warming only promotes total soil CO2 efflux by 7-8% on average in the meta-analysis across all grasslands or alpine grasslands globally (none of these experiments were whole-soil warming). We show that whole-soil warming has a much stronger effect on soil carbon emission in the alpine grassland ecosystem than what was reported in previous warming experiments, most of which only heat surface soils.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-48736-w

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