The effect of permafrost thaw on old carbon release and net carbon exchange from tundra

Edward A. G. Schuur (), Jason G. Vogel, Kathryn G. Crummer, Hanna Lee, James O. Sickman and T. E. Osterkamp
Additional contact information
Edward A. G. Schuur: University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, USA
Jason G. Vogel: University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, USA
Kathryn G. Crummer: University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, USA
Hanna Lee: University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, USA
James O. Sickman: University of California, Riverside, California 92521, USA
T. E. Osterkamp: Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska 99775, USA

Nature, 2009, vol. 459, issue 7246, 556-559

Abstract: Permafrost carbon release The enormous amounts of carbon stored deep in permafrost soils — permafrost ecosystems contain almost twice as much carbon as is present in the atmosphere — have the potential to create a positive feedback to climate change if released into a warming world. The bulk of the permafrost carbon pool consists of 'old' carbon, accumulated over thousands of years, but the rate of carbon release from these soils is highly uncertain. Schuur et al. report data on net ecosystem carbon exchange and the radiocarbon age of ecosystem respiration from a long-term monitoring site in Alaska where permafrost temperatures have been directly measured since 1985, and observed to warm since then. They find significant losses of soil carbon with permafrost thaw that, over decadal timescales, overwhelms increased plant carbon uptake at rates that could make permafrost a large biospheric carbon source in a warmer world.

Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08031 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:459:y:2009:i:7246:d:10.1038_nature08031

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature08031

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().