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Expert assessment of future vulnerability of the global peatland carbon sink

Nature Climate Change volume 11, pages 70–77 (2021)Cite this article

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 21 January 2021

This article has been updated

Abstract

The carbon balance of peatlands is predicted to shift from a sink to a source this century. However, peatland ecosystems are still omitted from the main Earth system models that are used for future climate change projections, and they are not considered in integrated assessment models that are used in impact and mitigation studies. By using evidence synthesized from the literature and an expert elicitation, we define and quantify the leading drivers of change that have impacted peatland carbon stocks during the Holocene and predict their effect during this century and in the far future. We also identify uncertainties and knowledge gaps in the scientific community and provide insight towards better integration of peatlands into modelling frameworks. Given the importance of the contribution by peatlands to the global carbon cycle, this study shows that peatland science is a critical research area and that we still have a long way to go to fully understand the peatland–carbon–climate nexus.

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Fig. 1: Integrating peatland knowledge in climate change modelling frameworks.
Fig. 2: The main agents of change impacting the global peatland carbon balance globally.
Fig. 3: Expert assessment of the global peatland carbon balance over time.

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Data availability

Data supporting the findings of this study, as well as references used to generate the maps, are available within the supplementary information files. All anonymized survey data generated and analysed during this study are available from the corresponding authors upon request.

Change history

  • 21 January 2021

    A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-00991-1.

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Acknowledgements

This work developed from the PAGES (Past Global Changes) C-PEAT (Carbon in Peat on EArth through Time) working group; we acknowledge support from PAGES funding by the American and Swiss National Science Foundations. We also thank the International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA) and the Department of Geography at Texas A&M University for workshop support. We thank P. Campbell for creating the peatland infographic, as well as D. McGuire for his comments on a previous version of the manuscript. We also acknowledge research support from Universidad Javeriana (J.C.B.); the National Science Foundation of the United States under grant nos. 1802838 (J. Loisel), 1019523 (J.L.B.) and 1802825 (C.T. and S.F.); the National Environment Research Council of the United Kingdom under grant nos. NE/1012915 and NE/S001166/1 (A.V.G.-S. and D.J.C.); the Attraction and Insertion of Advanced Human Capital Program of the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research of Chile and the NEXER-UMAG project under grant no. 7718002 (C.A.M.); the Geological Survey Land Resources Research and Development program of the United States (M.C.J.); the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (M. Garneau, S.F., T. Lacourse and J.W.); the National Science Centre of Poland under grant no. 2015/17/B/ST10/01656 (M.L.); the Academy of Finland projects 286731 and 319262 (T. Larmola); the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research under grant no. 1167019N (W.S.); the Office of International Affairs and Global Network at Chulalongkorn University (S.C.); the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany (M.B.); the Accelerating Higher Education Expansion and Development and Development Oriented Research programs of the World Bank (A.S.R.); and the Swiss National Science Foundation under grant no. 200020_172476 (F.J. and J.M.).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Deceased: R. Payne.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    J. Loisel

  2. Department of Geography, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

    A. V. Gallego-Sala, M. J. Amesbury, D. J. Charman & T. P. Roland

  3. Ecosystems and Environment Research Programme, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    M. J. Amesbury, A. Korhola, M. Väliranta, S. Juutinen, K. Minkkinen & S. Piilo

  4. Department of Geography and Geotop Research Center, University of Quebec at Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

    G. Magnan & M. Garneau

  5. Magister of Environment and Soil Science Department, Tanjungpura University, Pontianak, Indonesia

    G. Anshari

  6. Department of Geography and Environment, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA

    D. W. Beilman

  7. Department of Ecology and Territory, Pontificial Xavierian University, Bogota, Colombia

    J. C. Benavides

  8. Organic Geochemistry Unit, School of Chemistry, and School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    J. Blewett & B. D. A. Naafs

  9. Environmental Studies Program and Earth and Oceanographic Science Department, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME, USA

    P. Camill

  10. Department of Geology, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand

    S. Chawchai

  11. Department of Geography, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    A. Hedgpeth

  12. Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany

    T. Kleinen & V. Brovkin

  13. Faculty of Engineering, Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

    D. Large

  14. Centro de Investigación GAIA Antártica, University of Magallanes, Punta Arenas, Chile

    C. A. Mansilla

  15. Climate and Environmental Physics, Physics Institute and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    J. Müller & F. Joos

  16. Consortium Érudit, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

    S. van Bellen

  17. Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    J. B. West

  18. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA

    Z. Yu

  19. Institute for Peat and Mire Research, School of Geographical Sciences, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China

    Z. Yu

  20. Department of Environmental Studies, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA, USA

    J. L. Bubier

  21. Department of Geography, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

    T. Moore

  22. Department of Physical Geography, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    A. B. K. Sannel

  23. School of Geography, Geology and the Environment, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

    S. Page

  24. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    M. Bechtold & W. Swinnen

  25. School of Geography & Sustainable Development, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK

    L. E. S. Cole

  26. Department of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

    J. P. Chanton

  27. Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Roskilde, Denmark

    T. R. Christensen

  28. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    M. A. Davies & S. A. Finkelstein

  29. Instituto Franco-Argentino para el Estudio del Clima y sus Impactos, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    F. De Vleeschouwer

  30. Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA

    S. Frolking & C. Treat

  31. Department of Geobotany and Plant Ecology, University of Lodz, Lodz, Poland

    M. Gałka

  32. Laboratoire d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Environnement, UMR 5245, CNRS-UPS-INPT, Toulouse, France

    L. Gandois

  33. Cranfield Soil and Agrifood Institute, Cranfield University, Cranfield, UK

    N. Girkin

  34. Department of Renewable Resources, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

    L. I. Harris

  35. Stockholm Environment Institute, University of York, York, UK

    A. Heinemeyer

  36. Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany

    A. M. Hoyt

  37. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

    A. M. Hoyt

  38. Florence Bascom Geoscience Center, United States Geological Survey, Reston, VA, USA

    M. C. Jones

  39. Department of Marine and Coastal Environmental Science, Texas A&M University at Galveston, Galveston, TX, USA

    K. Kaiser

  40. Department of Biology, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

    T. Lacourse

  41. Faculty of Geographical and Geological Sciences, Climate Change Ecology Research Unit, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland

    M. Lamentowicz

  42. Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Helsinki, Finland

    T. Larmola

  43. Agroscope, Zurich, Switzerland

    J. Leifeld

  44. Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    A. Lohila

  45. Finnish Meteorological Institute, Climate System Research, Helsinki, Finland

    A. Lohila

  46. Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, UK

    A. M. Milner

  47. Department of Forest Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    K. Minkkinen

  48. School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    P. Moss

  49. Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, NY, USA

    J. Nichols

  50. National Park Service, Washington DC, WA, USA

    J. O’Donnell

  51. Department of Environment & Geography, University of York, York, UK

    R. Payne

  52. Department of Chemistry, and Department of Geological and Environmental Science, Hope College, Holland, MI, USA

    M. Philben

  53. Department of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Reading, Reading, UK

    A. Quillet

  54. Department of Applied Earth Sciences, Uva Wellassa University, Badulla, Sri Lanka

    A. S. Ratnayake

  55. School of Biosciences, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

    S. Sjögersten

  56. Département de Géographie, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada

    O. Sonnentag & J. Talbot

  57. Geography, School of Natural and Built Environment, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK

    G. T. Swindles

  58. Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

    A. C. Valach

  59. Department of Environment and Sustainability, Grenfell Campus, Memorial University, Corner Brook, Newfoundland, Canada

    J. Wu

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Contributions

J. Loisel, A.V.G.-S., M.J.A. and G.M. performed most of the analyses and wrote most of the manuscript. D.B., J.C.B., J. Blewett, P.C., D.J.C., S.C., A.V.G.-S., A. Hedgpeth, T.K., A.K., D.L., J. Loisel, C.A.M., J.M., S.v.B., J.B.W. and Z.Y. formulated the research goals and ideas during the 2018 C-PEAT workshop in Texas, United States. J.L.B., M. Garneau, T.M., A.B.K.S., S. Page, M.V., A.M.H., S.J., T. Larmola, A.L., K.M. and C.T. wrote parts of the review section. Other co-authors (A. Heinemeyer., S.P., T. Lacourse and M. Gałka) contributed with unpublished data or completed the expert opinion survey. All co-authors contributed to data analysis and writing of the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to J. Loisel or A. V. Gallego-Sala.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Peer review information Nature Climate Change thanks Katharine Mach and Matthew Warren for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 All survey results (individual data points).

Each individual response is shown as a spot. Positive values represent peatland sinks, negative values represent peatland sources to the atmosphere. When a range of values was given, the midpoint is used. Codes for drivers: T = temperature, M = moisture balance, SL = sea level, F = fire, LU = land use, P = permafrost, N = nitrogen deposition, AP = atmospheric pollution.

Extended Data Fig. 2 All self-reported confidence and expertise levels, organized by time period and peatland region.

Blue (yellow) bars represent high-latitude (tropical) peatlands. Confidence and expertise values specified in the survey were 1 = very low, 2 = low, 3 = medium, 4 = high, 5 = very high.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Comparison of survey results from all respondents vs. those from highly self-rated experts.

Data shown as mean and 10th – 90th percentiles. High-latitude peatland results shown in blue (dark = all data, light = E>2). Tropical peatland data shown in yellow (dark yellow = all data, light beige = E>2). Positive values represent peatland sinks, negative values represent peatland sources to the atmosphere. Codes for drivers: T = temperature, M = moisture balance, SL = sea level, F = fire, LU = land use, P = permafrost, N = nitrogen deposition, AP =atmospheric pollution.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary methods, results, discussion, Figs. S1–S3, Tables S1–S11 and Appendices 1–5.

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Loisel, J., Gallego-Sala, A.V., Amesbury, M.J. et al. Expert assessment of future vulnerability of the global peatland carbon sink. Nat. Clim. Chang. 11, 70–77 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-00944-0

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