Journal
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS
Volume 40, Issue 23, Pages 6165-6170Publisher
AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION
DOI: 10.1002/2013GL058088
Keywords
carbon cycle; Yedoma; thermokarst; frozen organic matter; Arctic; climate feedback
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Funding
- German Ministry of Science and Education [01DM12011]
- German National Academic Foundation
- NSF OPP [0732735]
- NASA [NNX08AJ37G]
- Division Of Environmental Biology
- Direct For Biological Sciences [0955341, 0955713] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- NASA [100619, NNX08AJ37G] Funding Source: Federal RePORTER
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Estimates for circumpolar permafrost organic carbon (OC) storage suggest that this pool contains twice the amount of current atmospheric carbon. The Yedoma region sequestered substantial quantities of OC and is unique because its deep OC, which was incorporated into permafrost during ice age conditions. Rapid inclusion of labile organic matter into permafrost halted decomposition and resulted in a deep long-term sink. We show that the deep frozen OC in the Yedoma region consists of two distinct major subreservoirs: Yedoma deposits (late Pleistocene ice- and organic-rich silty sediments) and deposits formed in thaw-lake basins (generalized as thermokarst deposits). We quantified the OC pool based on field data and extrapolation using geospatial data sets to 83+61/-57 Gt for Yedoma deposits and to 128+99/-96 Gt for thermokarst deposits. The total Yedoma region 211+160/-153 Gt is a substantial amount of thaw-vulnerable OC that must be accounted for in global models.
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