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High Arctic wetting reduces permafrost carbon feedbacks to climate warming

Nature Climate Change volume 4, pages 51–55 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

The carbon (C) balance of permafrost regions is predicted to be extremely sensitive to climatic changes1,2,3. Major uncertainties exist in the rate of permafrost thaw and associated C emissions (33–508 Pg C or 0.04–1.69 °C by 2100; refs 2, 3) and plant C uptake. In the High Arctic, semi-deserts retain unique soil–plant–permafrost interactions4,5 and heterogeneous soil C pools6 (>12 Pg C; ref. 7). Owing to its coastal proximity, marked changes are expected for High Arctic tundra8. With declining summer sea-ice cover9, these systems are simultaneously exposed to rising temperatures9, increases in precipitation10 and permafrost degradation11. Here we show, using measurements of tundra–atmosphere C fluxes and soil C sources (14C) at a long-term climate change experiment in northwest Greenland, that warming decreased the summer CO2 sink strength of semi-deserts by up to 55%. In contrast, warming combined with wetting increased the CO2 sink strength by an order of magnitude. Further, wetting while relocating recently assimilated plant C into the deep soil decreased old C loss compared with the warming-only treatment. Consequently, the High Arctic has the potential to remain a strong C sink even as the rest of the permafrost region transitions to a net C source as a result of future global warming.

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Figure 1: Summertime Reco for the different experimental treatments.
Figure 2: Radiocarbon content of Reco and pore space CO2
Figure 3: Loss of old C as a function of warming and wetting.

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Change history

  • 09 December 2013

    In the version of this Letter originally published, in the legend for Fig. 2b, the label for Irrigation should have been 'W; 4 °C × W'. This error has now been corrected in all versions of the Letter.

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Acknowledgements

This work was made possible by assistance from US Air Force Base Thule, Greenland, CH2M Hill Polar Services, and the KCCAMS laboratory. We thank all research assistants: A. Stills, D. S. Lindsey, J. Thomas, J. Yi and M. Ruacho, and research engineer C. Lett. This work was financially supported by the US National Science Foundation (ARC-0909514 to C.I.C. and ARC-0909538 to J.M.W.) and the European Research Council (FP/2007-2013, ERC Grant Agreement no. 202835) to U.S.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, California 92697-3100, USA

    M. Lupascu, X. Xu & C. I. Czimczik

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alaska, Anchorage, Anchorage, Alaska 99508, USA

    J. M. Welker

  3. Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA

    U. Seibt

  4. BioEMCo, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Grignon Campus (INRA-AgroParisTech), Thiverval-Grignon 78850, France

    U. Seibt & K. Maseyk

Authors
  1. M. Lupascu
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  4. K. Maseyk
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Contributions

J.M.W. and C.I.C. conceived and designed the experiment. M.L., X.X. and C.I.C. processed and analysed radiocarbon samples. M.L. performed research and analysed radiocarbon and Reco data. U.S. and K.M. analysed NEE data. All authors commented on the analysis and presentation of the data and were involved in the writing.

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Correspondence to M. Lupascu.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Lupascu, M., Welker, J., Seibt, U. et al. High Arctic wetting reduces permafrost carbon feedbacks to climate warming. Nature Clim Change 4, 51–55 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2058

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