Journal
NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE
Volume 3, Issue 10, Pages 890-894Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE1955
Keywords
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Funding
- Danish National Research Foundation [CENPERM DNRF100]
- European Union [GA282700]
- Norwegian Research Council (TSP Norway) [176033/S30]
- University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS)
- Danish Ministry for Climate, Energy and Building
- Zackenberg Research Station
- NSF Bonanza Creek LTER
- NSF CAREER
- NSF RCN
- Department of Energy NICCR
- TEP
- NSF Office of Polar Programs
- US National Parks Inventory and Monitoring Program
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Division Of Environmental Biology [0955341] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Division Of Environmental Biology
- Direct For Biological Sciences [1026415, 0955713] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Thawing permafrost represents a poorly understood feedback mechanism of climate change in the Arctic, but with a potential impact owing to stored carbon being mobilized(1-5). We have quantified the long-term loss of carbon (C) from thawing permafrost in Northeast Greenland from 1996 to 2008 by combining repeated sediment sampling to assess changes in C stock and >12 years of CO2 production in incubated permafrost samples. Field observations show that the active-layer thickness has increased by >1 cm yr(-1) but thawing has not resulted in a detectable decline in C stocks. Laboratory mineralization rates at 5 degrees C resulted in a C loss between 9 and 75%, depending on drainage, highlighting the potential of fast mobilization of permafrost C under aerobic conditions, but also that C at near-saturated conditions may remain largely immobilized over decades. This is confirmed by a three-pool C dynamics model that projects a potential C loss between 13 and 77% for 50 years of incubation at 5 degrees C.
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