@article {1956, title = {Potential carbon emissions dominated by carbon dioxide from thawed permafrost soils}, journal = {Nature Climate Change}, year = {2016}, month = {2016/06/13/online}, abstract = {

Increasing temperatures in northern high latitudes are causing\ permafrost to thaw1, making large amounts of previously\ frozen organic matter vulnerable to microbial decomposition.\ Permafrost thaw also creates a fragmented landscape of drier\ and wetter soil conditions3,4 that determine the amount and\ form (carbon dioxide (CO2), or methane (CH4)) of carbon (C)\ released to the atmosphere. The rate and form of C release\ control the magnitude of the permafrost C feedback, so\ their relative \ contribution with a warming climate remains\ unclear. We quantified the eect of increasing temperature\ and changes from aerobic to anaerobic soil conditions using\ 25 soil incubation studies from the permafrost zone. Here\ we show, using two separate meta-analyses, that a 10 C\ increase in incubation temperature increased C release by a\ factor of 2.0 (95\% confidence interval (CI), 1.8 to 2.2). Under\ aerobic incubation conditions, soils released 3.4 (95\% CI,\ 2.2 to 5.2) times more C than under \ anaerobic conditions.\ Even when accounting for the higher heat trapping capacity\ of CH4, soils released 2.3 (95\% CI, 1.5 to 3.4) times more C\ under aerobic conditions. These results imply that permafrost\ ecosystems thawing under aerobic conditions and releasing\ CO2 will strengthen the permafrost C feedback more than\ waterlogged systemsreleasingCO2 andCH4 for a given amount\ of C.

}, doi = {10.1038/NCLIMATE3054}, author = {Schadel, Christina and Bader, Martin K.-F. and Schuur, Edward A. G. and Biasi, Christina and Bracho, Rosvel and Petr {\v C}apek and De Baets, Sarah and K. Diakova and Ernakovich, Jessica and Estop-Aragones, Cristian and Graham, David E. and Hartley, Iain P. and Iversen, Colleen M. and Kane, Evan and Knoblauch, Christian and Lupascu, Massimo and Pertti J. Martikainen and Natali, Susan M. and Norby, Richard J. and Jonathan A. O{\textquoteright}Donnell and Chowdhury, Taniya Roy and Hana Santruckova and Shaver, Gaius and Sloan, Victoria L. and Treat, Claire C. and Turetsky, Merritt R. and Waldrop, Mark P. and Wickland, Kimberly P.} }