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High sensitivity of peat decomposition to climate change through water-table feedback

Nature Geoscience volume 1, pages 763–766 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

Historically, northern peatlands have functioned as a carbon sink, sequestering large amounts of soil organic carbon, mainly due to low decomposition in cold, largely waterlogged soils1,2. The water table, an essential determinant of soil-organic-carbon dynamics3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10, interacts with soil organic carbon. Because of the high water-holding capacity of peat and its low hydraulic conductivity, accumulation of soil organic carbon raises the water table, which lowers decomposition rates of soil organic carbon in a positive feedback loop. This two-way interaction between hydrology and biogeochemistry has been noted3,5,6,7,8, but is not reproduced in process-based simulations9. Here we present simulations with a coupled physical–biogeochemical soil model with peat depths that are continuously updated from the dynamic balance of soil organic carbon. Our model reproduces dynamics of shallow and deep peatlands in northern Manitoba, Canada, on both short and longer timescales. We find that the feedback between the water table and peat depth increases the sensitivity of peat decomposition to temperature, and intensifies the loss of soil organic carbon in a changing climate. In our long-term simulation, an experimental warming of 4 ∘C causes a 40% loss of soil organic carbon from the shallow peat and 86% from the deep peat. We conclude that peatlands will quickly respond to the expected warming in this century by losing labile soil organic carbon during dry periods.

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Figure 1: Comparisons of the simulation and the field observation in year 2003 at BOREAS OBS.
Figure 2: Changes in SOC equilibria due to an experimental warming of 4 ∘C at BOREAS OBS.
Figure 3: A 4000-year simulation of peat SOC and peat depth at the BOREAS Fen site.
Figure 4: Transient change in the water table at the BOREAS Fen site, 2004–2099.

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Acknowledgements

We appreciate discussions with D. R. Foster and J. J. McCarthy. The study of T.I. was supported by the James Mills Peirce Fellowship provided by the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and the Innovative Program of Climate Change Projection for the 21st Century (KAKUSHIN Program) of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Frontier Research Center for Global Change, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Yokohama 236-0001, Japan

    Takeshi Ise

  2. Department of Physical and Earth Sciences, Worcester State College, Worcester, Massachusetts 01602, USA

    Allison L. Dunn

  3. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA

    Steven C. Wofsy

  4. Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA

    Paul R. Moorcroft

Authors
  1. Takeshi Ise
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  2. Allison L. Dunn
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  3. Steven C. Wofsy
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  4. Paul R. Moorcroft
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Contributions

T.I. formulated the model framework and conducted the simulations. A.L.D. and S.C.W. designed the field observations, and A.L.D. conducted the fieldwork. The land-surface model ED-RAMS is coded and maintained by P.R.M., and T.I. and P.R.M. wrote the paper. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Takeshi Ise.

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Ise, T., Dunn, A., Wofsy, S. et al. High sensitivity of peat decomposition to climate change through water-table feedback. Nature Geosci 1, 763–766 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo331

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