Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

A shift of thermokarst lakes from carbon sources to sinks during the Holocene epoch

Abstract

Thermokarst lakes formed across vast regions of Siberia and Alaska during the last deglaciation and are thought to be a net source of atmospheric methane and carbon dioxide during the Holocene epoch1,2,3,4. However, the same thermokarst lakes can also sequester carbon5, and it remains uncertain whether carbon uptake by thermokarst lakes can offset their greenhouse gas emissions. Here we use field observations of Siberian permafrost exposures, radiocarbon dating and spatial analyses to quantify Holocene carbon stocks and fluxes in lake sediments overlying thawed Pleistocene-aged permafrost. We find that carbon accumulation in deep thermokarst-lake sediments since the last deglaciation is about 1.6 times larger than the mass of Pleistocene-aged permafrost carbon released as greenhouse gases when the lakes first formed. Although methane and carbon dioxide emissions following thaw lead to immediate radiative warming, carbon uptake in peat-rich sediments occurs over millennial timescales. We assess thermokarst-lake carbon feedbacks to climate with an atmospheric perturbation model and find that thermokarst basins switched from a net radiative warming to a net cooling climate effect about 5,000 years ago. High rates of Holocene carbon accumulation in 20 lake sediments (47 ± 10 grams of carbon per square metre per year; mean ± standard error) were driven by thermokarst erosion and deposition of terrestrial organic matter, by nutrient release from thawing permafrost that stimulated lake productivity and by slow decomposition in cold, anoxic lake bottoms. When lakes eventually drained, permafrost formation rapidly sequestered sediment carbon. Our estimate of about 160 petagrams of Holocene organic carbon in deep lake basins of Siberia and Alaska increases the circumpolar peat carbon pool estimate for permafrost regions by over 50 per cent (ref. 6). The carbon in perennially frozen drained lake sediments may become vulnerable to mineralization as permafrost disappears7,8,9, potentially negating the climate stabilization provided by thermokarst lakes during the late Holocene.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Carbon cycling during the development of deep thermokarst lakes.
Figure 2: Facies description and carbon contents in the deep thermokarst-lake landscape.
Figure 3: Thermokarst-lake carbon cycling dynamic since the last deglaciation.
Figure 4: Comparison of long-term organic carbon accumulation rates among northern lakes and peatlands by mean annual temperature.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Walter, K. M., Zimov, S. A., Chanton, J. P., Verbyla, D. & Chapin, F. S., III Methane bubbling from Siberian thaw lakes as a positive feedback to climate warming. Nature 443, 71–75 (2006)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Walter, K. M., Edwards, M. E., Grosse, G., Zimov, S. A. & Chapin, F. S., III Thermokarst lakes as a source of atmospheric CH4 during the last deglaciation. Science 318, 633–636 (2007)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Petrenko, V. V. et al. 14CH4 measurements in Greenland ice: investigating last glacial termination CH4 sources. Science 324, 506–508 (2009)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Brosius, L. S. et al. Using the deuterium isotope composition of permafrost meltwater to constrain thermokarst lake contributions to atmospheric CH4 during the last deglaciation. J. Geophys. Res. 117, G01022 (2012)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Schirrmeister, L. et al. Fossil organic matter characteristics in permafrost deposits of the northeast Siberian Arctic. J. Geophys. Res. 116, G00M02 (2011)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Tarnocai, C. et al. Soil organic carbon pools in the northern circumpolar permafrost region. Glob. Biogeochem. Cycles 23, GB2023 (2009)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Maltby, E. & Immirzi, P. Carbon dynamics in peatlands and other wetland soils: regional and global perspectives. Chemosphere 27, 999–1023 (1993)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Avis, C. A., Weaver, A. J. & Meissner, K. J. Reduction in areal extent of high-latitude wetlands in response to permafrost thaw. Nature Geosci. 4, 444–448 (2011)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Slater, A. G. & Lawrence, D. M. Diagnosing present and future permafrost from climate models. J. Clim. 26, 5608–5623 (2013)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  10. Zimov, S. A., Schuur, E. A. G. & Chapin, F. S. Permafrost and the global carbon budget. Science 312, 1612–1613 (2006)

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Strauss, J. et al. The deep permafrost carbon pool of the Yedoma region in Siberia and Alaska. Geophys. Res. Lett. 40, 6165–6170 (2013)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  12. Frolking, S. & Roulet, N. T. Holocene radiative forcing impact of northern peatland carbon accumulation and methane emissions. Glob. Change Biol. 13, 1079–1088 (2007)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  13. Hugelius, G. et al. The Northern Circumpolar Soil Carbon Database: spatially distributed datasets of soil coverage and soil carbon storage in the northern permafrost regions. Earth Syst. Sci. Data 5, 3–13 (2013)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  14. Smith, L. C. et al. Siberian peatlands a net carbon sink and global methane source since the early Holocene. Science 303, 353–356 (2004)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Kastowski, M., Hinderer, M. & Vecsei, A. Long-term carbon burial in European lakes: Analysis and estimate. Glob. Biogeochem. Cycles 25, GB3019 (2011)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Yu, Z., Beilman, D. W. & Jones, M. C. in Carbon Cycling in Northern Peatlands (eds Baird, A. J., Belyea, L. R., Comas, X., Reeve, A. S. & Slater, L. D. ) Geophysical Monograph Series 184 (AGU, 2009)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Tranvik, L. J. et al. Lakes and reservoirs as regulators of carbon cycling and climate. Limnol. Oceanogr. 54, 2298–2314 (2009)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Lantz, T. C., Kokelj, S. V., Gergel, S. E. & Henry, G. H. R. Relative impacts of disturbance and temperature: persistent long-term changes in microenvironment and vegetation in retrogressive thaw slumps. Glob. Change Biol. 15, 1664–1675 (2009)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  19. Welch, H. E. & Kalff, J. Benthic photosynthesis and respiration in Char Lake. J. Fish. Res. Board Can. 31, 609–620 (1974)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Riis, T., Olesen, B., Katborg, C. K. & Christoffersen, K. S. Growth rate of an aquatic bryophyte (Warnstorfia fluitans (Hedw.) Loeske) from a high arctic lake: effect of nutrient concentration. Arctic 63, 100–106 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Bowden, W. B., Finlay, J. C. & Maloney, P. E. Long-term effects of PO4 fertilization on the distribution of bryophytes in an arctic stream. Freshwat. Biol. 32, 445–454 (1994)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Mesquita, P. S., Wrona, F. J. & Prowse, T. D. Effects of retrogressive permafrost thaw slumping on sediment chemistry and submerged macrophytes in Arctic tundra lakes. Freshwat. Biol. 55, 2347–2358 (2010)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  23. Hershey, A. Effects of predatory sculpin on the chironomid communities in an arctic lake. Ecology 66, 1131–1138 (1985)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Houser, N. J. Water color affects the stratification, surface temperature, heat content, and mean epilimnetic irradiance of small lakes. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 63, 2447–2455 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Jones, B. M. et al. Modern thermokarst lake dynamics in the continuous permafrost zone, northern Seward Peninsula, Alaska. J. Geophys. Res. 116, G00M03 (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Romanovsky, V. E. et al. Thermal state of permafrost in Russia. Permafrost Periglacial Process. 21, 136–155 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Stocker, T. F. et al. Technical summary. In Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (eds Stocker, T. F. et al.) (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2014)

  28. Vaks, A. et al. Speleothems reveal 500,000-year history of Siberian permafrost. Science 340, 183–186 (2013)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  29. Smith, L. C., Sheng, Y. & MacDonald, G. M. A first pan-Arctic assessment of the influence of glaciation, permafrost, topography and peatlands on northern hemisphere lake distribution. Permafrost Periglacial Process. 18, 201–208 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Berger, A. & Loutre, M. F. Insolation values for the climate of the last 10 million years. Quat. Sci. Rev. 10, 297–317 (1991)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  31. Walter Anthony, K. M. & Anthony, P. Constraining spatial variability of methane ebullition in thermokarst lakes using point-process models. J. Geophys. Res. 118, http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jgrg.20087 (2013)

  32. Czudek, T. & Demek, J. Thermokarst in Siberia and its influence on the development of lowland relief. Quat. Res. 1, 103–120 (1970)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Soloviev, P. A. Thermokarst phenomena and landforms due to frost heaving in Central Yakutia. Biuletyn Peryglacjalny 23, 135–155 (1973)

    Google Scholar 

  34. Brouchkov, A., Fukuda, M., Fedorov, A., Konstantinov, P. & Iwahana, G. Thermokarst as a short-term permafrost disturbance, Central Yakutia. Permafrost Periglacial Process. 15, 81–87 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Ferland, M. E., del Giorgio, P. A., Teodoru, C. R. & Prairie, Y. T. Long-term C accumulation and total C stocks in boreal lakes in northern Québec. Glob. Biogeochem. Cycles 26, GB0E04 (2012)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  36. Engstrom, D. R. & Rose, N. L. A whole-basin, mass balance approach to paleolimnology. J. Paleolimnol. 49, 333–347 (2013)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  37. Anderson, N. J., Dietz, R. D. & Engstrom, D. R. Land-use change, not climate, controls organic carbon burial in lakes. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 280, 20131278 (2013)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  38. Dean, W. E. Determination of carbonate and organic matter in calcareous sediments and sedimentary rocks by loss on ignition: comparison with other methods. J. Sedim. Petrol. 44, 242–248 (1974)

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  39. Bundy, L. G. & Bremner, J. M. A simple titrimetric method for determination of inorganic carbon in soils. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 36, 273–275 (1972)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  40. Reimer, P. J. et al. IntCal09 and Marine09 radiocarbon age calibration curves, 0–50,000 years cal BP. Radiocarbon 51, 1111–1150 (2009)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  41. Romanovskii, N. N. Fundamentals of Cryogenesis of Lithosphere 296–313 (Moscow Univ. Press, 1993)

    Google Scholar 

  42. Jorgenson, M. T. et al. Permafrost characteristics of Alaska. Proc. Ninth Intl Conf. Permafrost 3, 121–122 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  43. Grosse, G., Schirrmeister, L., Kunitsky, V. V. & Hubberten, H. W. The use of CORONA images in remote sensing of periglacial geomorphology: an illustration from the NE Siberian Coast. Permafrost Periglacial Process. 16, 163–172 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Grosse, G., Schirrmeister, L. & Malthus, T. J. Application of Landsat-7 satellite data and a DEM for the quantification of thermokarst-affected terrain types in the periglacial Lena-Anabar coastal lowland. Polar Res. 25, 51–67 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  45. Veremeeva, A. & Gubin, S. Modern tundra landscapes of the Kolyma Lowland and their evolution in the Holocene. Permafrost Periglacial Process. 20, 399–406 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. Morgenstern, A., Grosse, G., Günther, F., Fedorova, I. & Schirrmeister, L. Spatial analyses of thermokarst lakes and basins in Yedoma landscapes of the Lena Delta. Cryosphere 5, 849–867 (2011)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  47. Morgenstern, A. Thermokarst and Thermal Erosion: Degradation of Siberian Ice-rich Permafrost. http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/volltexte/2012/6207/, PhD thesis, Potsdam Univ . (2012)

  48. Grosse, G. et al. Distribution of late Pleistocene ice-rich syngenetic permafrost of the Yedoma Suite in East and Central Siberia, Russia. USGS Open-file Rep. 2013-1078. (2013)

  49. Walker, D. A. et al. The Circumpolar Arctic vegetation map. J. Veg. Sci. 16, 267–282 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  50. Vtyurin, B. I. Underground Ices of the USSR [in Russian] 1–212 (Science, 1975)

    Google Scholar 

  51. Péwé, T. L., Journaux, A. & Stuckenrath, R. Radiocarbon dates and late-Quaternary stratigraphy from Mamontova Gora, unglaciated central Yakutia, Siberia, U.S.S.R. Quat. Res. 8, 51–63 (1977)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  52. Sher, A. V. et al. Late Cenozoic of the Kolyma Lowland: XIV Pacific Science Congress, Tour Guide XI (Khabarovsk August 1979) 1–116 (Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1979)

  53. Tomirdiaro, S. V. Loess-ice Formation of Eastern Siberia in the Late Pleistocene and Holocene 1–184 (Nauka, 1980)

    Google Scholar 

  54. Vasil'cuk, Y. K. Oxygen Isotope Composition of Ground Ice Application to Paleogeocryological Reconstructions [in Russian] Vols 1 and 2 (Russian Academy of Sciences and Lomonosov's Moscow University Publications, 1992)

    Google Scholar 

  55. Nikolaev, V. I., Mikhalev, D. V., Romanenko, F. A. & Brilli, M. Reconstruction of the conditions for North-East Russia permafrost formation on the isotope study results of Kolyma lowland key sections. [in Russian] Ice Snow. 4, 79–90 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  56. Kanevskiy, M., Shur, Y., Fortier, D., Jorgenson, M. T. & Stephani, E. Cryostratigraphy of late Pleistocene syngenetic permafrost (yedoma) in northern Alaska, Itkillik River exposure. Quat. Res. (2011)

  57. Schirrmeister, L., Siegert, C., Kunitzky, V. V., Grootes, P. M. & Erlenkeuser, H. Late Quaternary ice-rich permafrost sequences as a paleoenvironmental archive for the Laptev Sea Region in northern Siberia. Int. J. Earth Sci. 91, 154–167 (2002)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  58. Schirrmeister, L. et al. Periglacial landscape evolution and environmental changes of Arctic lowland areas for the last 60,000 years (western Laptev Sea coast, Cape Mamontov Klyk). Polar Res. 27, 249–272 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  59. Andreev, A. A. et al. Weichselian and Holocene palaeoenvironmental history of the Bol'shoy Lyakhovsky Island, New Siberian Archipelago, Arctic Siberia. Boreas 38, 72–110 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  60. Giblin, A., Luecke, C. & Kling, G. Physical and Chemical Data for Various Lakes near Toolik Research Station, Arctic LTER Summer 2009 Arctic Long-Term Ecological Research Database, http://dx.doi.org/10.6073/pasta/1b77f4c8d8cc250ce0f90bbb17d9c976 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  61. Lyons, W. B. & Finlay, J. C. in Polar Lakes and Rivers: Limnology of Arctic and Antarctic Aquatic Ecosystems (eds Vincent, W. F. & Laybourn-Parry, J. ) 137–156 (Oxford Univ. Press, 2008)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  62. Wetzel, R. G. & Likens, G. E. Limnological Analyses 3rd edn, 1–429 (Springer, 2000)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  63. R Development Core Team. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computinghttp://www.R-project.org (R Foundation for Statistical Computing, 2009)

  64. Kholodov, A. L. et al. Estimation of the organic carbon input to the arctic ocean due to erosion of Laptev and East-Siberian seashore. Earth Cryosphere 7, 3–12 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  65. Schirrmeister, L. et al. Periglacial landscape evolution and environmental changes of Arctic lowland areas for the last 60,000 years (western Laptev Sea coast, Cape Mamontov Klyk). Polar Res. 27, 249–272 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  66. Schneider, J., Grosse, G. & Wagner, D. Land cover classification of tundra environments in the Arctic Lena Delta based on Landsat 7 ETM+ data and its application for upscaling of methane emissions. Remote Sens. Environ. 113, 380–391 (2009)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  67. Hopkins, D. M. & Kidd, J. G. in Proc. Fifth Intl Conf. Permafrost (ed. Senneset, K. ) 790–795 (Academic, 1988)

    Google Scholar 

  68. Jones, M. C., Grosse, G., Jones, B. M. & Walter Anthony, K. Peat accumulation in drained thermokarst lake basins in continuous, ice-rich permafrost, northern Seward Peninsula, Alaska. J. Geophys. Res. 117, G00M07 (2012)

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  69. Kessler, M. A., Plug, L. J. & Walter Anthony, K. M. Simulating the decadal- to millennial-scale dynamics of morphology and sequestered carbon mobilization of two thermokarst lakes in NW Alaska. J. Geophys. Res. 117, G00M06 (2012)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  70. Ramaswamy, V. et al. in Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (eds Houghton, J. T. et al.) 350–416 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2001)

  71. Joos, F. et al. An efficient and accurate representation of complex oceanic and biospheric models of anthropogenic carbon uptake. Tellus 48, 397–417 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  72. Prather, M. et al. in Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (eds Houghton, J. T. et al.) 239–287 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2001)

  73. Walker, D. A. & Everett, K. R. Loess ecosystems of northern Alaska: regional gradient and toposequence at Prudhoe Bay. Ecol. Monogr. 61, 437–464 (1991)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  74. Weintraub, M. N. in Phosphorus in Action, Soil Biology (eds Bunemann, E. K. et al.) Ch. 12, 295–316 (Springer, 2011)

    Book  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank L. Brosius, K. Davies, L. Farquharson, J. Neff and N. Zimov for assistance with field and laboratory work; G. Kling for p CO 2 and DOC data sets for Lake N1 (Alaska); and E. A. G. Schuur, B. Gaglioti, C. Bernhardt and S. Neuzil for constructive comments on the manuscript. Research funding was provided by the NSF (OPP-0099113, OPP-0732735 and ARC-1304823) and NASA (NNX08AJ37G). Additional support was received from other NSF projects (OPP-1107892, OPP-6737545, PLR-1303940), the USGS, the DOE (DE-SC0010580) and ERC number 338335.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

K.M.W.A. had primary responsibility for study design, field work, laboratory measurements, data analysis, interpretation and writing. S.A.Z. co-designed the study and contributed substantially to data interpretation. M.C.J., G.G., P.M.A. and F.S.C. contributed to project planning, field and laboratory work, and interpretation of results. M.C.J. provided expertise in macrofossil identification. G.G. conducted spatial analyses. K.M.W.A., M.C.M., J.C.F. and S.D. conducted laboratory analyses of lake water samples and ice wedges, and designed and implemented the component of terrestrial vegetation and soil nutrient cycling. P.F. conducted anaerobic laboratory incubations. S.F. created the atmospheric model for radiative forcing calculations. All authors contributed to the revision and integration of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to K. M. Walter Anthony.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Figure 1 Map of main distribution of yedoma in the Beringia region in Siberia and Alaska (yellow regions).

a, The Kolyma Lowland, considered largely covered by yedoma during the Last Glacial Maximum, now has only discontinuous yedoma coverage (yellow regions in b) owing to widespread destructive thermokarst and fluvial processes shaping the yedoma landscape since the early Holocene* (Supplementary Information section 1.1). Red dots in b indicate the locations of permafrost exposures sampled in boreal regions—Anuiy (Inu), Duvanii Yar (Duv), Plakhanski Yar (Pla), Cherskii (Cher)—and tundra regions—Chukochi Cape (Chuk and Dtlb) and Krestovskiy Cape (Kres). Literature data were synthesized from other western and eastern yedoma regions in Siberia5,10,32,50,51,52,53,54,55,57,58,59,64,65,66 and Alaska4,56,67,68,69, respectively (black dots in a). For map clarity, abundant lakes in the study regions were not plotted. b, Our central Beringia study region in the Kolyma Lowland in Northeast Siberia (small black frame in a; 60,000 km2) is characterized by yedoma hills, deep yedoma lake basins, and fluvial flood plains of the Kolyma River and its tributaries.

Extended Data Figure 2 Relative contributions of facies F1–F6 to the average organic carbon content within the surface 10 m of North Siberian alases.

The black line indicates the number of exposure profiles included in the observations. Extrapolating the Holocene* organic carbon component observed in these profiles to the extent of deep thermokarst basins in the yedoma region of Beringia (925,400 km2, Supplementary Information section 1.6.1), we estimate the following Holocene* carbon pool sizes in the alases: 12 ± 2.5 Pg for 0–0.3 m, 36 ± 4.1 Pg for 0–1 m, 64 ± 4.3 Pg for 0–2 m, 89 ± 6.6 Pg for 0–3 m, 126 ± 9.0 Pg for 0–5 m, 144 ± 10.1 Pg for 0–7 m and 155 ± 11.6 Pg for 0–10 m. Error terms represent standard error at the 95% confidence limits derived by propagating uncertainties of the estimates of mean organic carbon bulk density for each depth interval, based on the interval size and number of field samples measured; additional uncertainty associated with the yedoma region extent is shown in Extended Data Table 3. Below 10 m, extrapolating our observation of Holocene* carbon in 7% of exposures, we estimate an additional 5 Pg C. Pleistocene carbon, also observed in the profiles and included in this figure, is accounted for in the regional-scale carbon mass balance calculation since these deposits extended deeper than we were able to expose in cross-section (Methods).

Extended Data Figure 3 Box plots showing physiochemical characteristics of lake bottom water in thermokarst lakes formed in Pleistocene yedoma (Y) and non-yedoma Holocene floodplain (F) permafrost in the same region of North Siberia.

DOC, dissolved organic carbon; DIN, dissolved inorganic nitrogen, dominated by ammonium; SRP, soluble reactive phosphorus. ‘Conductivity’ means specific conductivity. The number of samples n represent single observations per lake per day on different dates during June, July and August 2002–2003 from 9 yedoma and 13 floodplain thermokarst lakes (see Methods). The two-sample, two-sided Mann–Whitney test revealed differences between Y and F for all parameters except pH (P < 0.01).

Extended Data Figure 4 Comparison of physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of a yedoma lake and a non-yedoma lake of similar depth, volume and latitude in midsummer.

Closed circles indicate the yedoma lake, Grass Lake (68.75° N, 161.38° W), near Cherskii, Russia. Open circles indicate the non-yedoma lake (68.64 °N, −149.61 °W) near Toolik Field Station, Alaska, USA. Both lakes were thermally stratified, but the yedoma lake had an anaerobic hypolimnion with exceedingly high concentrations of DOC, SRP, DIN and other solutes (indicated by specific conductivity). In addition, the yedoma lake had a much lower light environment, a colder lake bottom temperature, lower pH, and relatively high concentrations of chlorophyll-a in the epilimnion and dissolved ions in the hypolimnion. The Toolik Field Station data were from ref. 60 and G. Kling (personal communication, 10 April 2013).

Extended Data Figure 5 Organic carbon pools in the yedoma region.

Our yedoma-region total organic carbon pool-size estimate (456 ± 45 Pg; Extended Data Table 3) is the sum of the following subset pools: (1) Holocene peat located above undisturbed yedoma permafrost; (2) yedoma that thawed, was reworked, and is now stored in thermokarst basins in facies F3 and F5; (3) taberite sediments representing in situ thawed, diagenetically altered yedoma in facies F6; (4) undisturbed yedoma in facies F7; (5) non-yedoma, Holocene* carbon stored in thermokarst basins in facies F1–F5 that was fixed via photosynthesis in and around the basins. Taberite deposits (red bar) are an important component of the yedoma-region total carbon pool that were not included in the recent yedoma-region carbon inventory of ref. 11.

Extended Data Table 1 Physical and chemical characteristics of facies in North Siberian permafrost exposures
Extended Data Table 2 Organic carbon concentrations in yedoma (F7) and taberites (F6) and organic carbon bulk density from various subregions in North Siberia
Extended Data Table 3 Calculations (a) and uncertainty analysis (b) of estimated carbon pool sizes and fluxes in the yedoma region
Extended Data Table 4 Greenhouse gas parameters for atmospheric model
Extended Data Table 5 Mean nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) concentrations in ice wedges, soils and present-day vegetation

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Methods, Supplementary Tables 1-3, a Supplementary Discussion and Supplementary References. The Supplementary Methods contain detailed methodology for field and lab studies of permafrost exposures and present-day soils and vegetation, explanation of calculations, radiative forcing modeling, and uncertainty assessments. The Supplementary Discussion contains references for the regional data sets shown in Fig. 4, benthic moss peat accumulation in past and future lakes, and reconciliation of previous carbon-stock estimates for the yedoma region. (PDF 1225 kb)

PowerPoint slides

Source data

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Anthony, K., Zimov, S., Grosse, G. et al. A shift of thermokarst lakes from carbon sources to sinks during the Holocene epoch. Nature 511, 452–456 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13560

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13560

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing