Editor's Summary

30 July 2009

Carbon released from peat

Climate-warming-induced acceleration of CO₂ emissions through enhanced respiration of centuries-to-millennia-old peat deposits may form a strong positive feedback to our climate. But the long-term temperature sensitivity of carbon in peatlands, especially at depth, remains uncertain. Now an experiment involving long-term (8 years plus) artificial warming of subarctic peatland shows that warming by about 1 °C stimulated ecosystem respiration rates by more than 50%, the bulk of the increase deriving from long-term, recalcitrant carbon towards the bottom of the active layer above the permafrost. The findings suggest that climate warming accelerates the respiration of subsurface carbon reservoirs in peatlands to a much larger extent than was previously thought, potentially offsetting much of the Kyoto Protocol targets for greenhouse-gas emission reductions for the whole European Union.

Letter: Carbon respiration from subsurface peat accelerated by climate warming in the subarctic

Ellen Dorrepaal, Sylvia Toet, Richard S. P. van Logtestijn, Elferra Swart, Martine J. van de Weg, Terry V. Callaghan & Rien Aerts

doi:10.1038/nature08216

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (291K) | Supplementary information