Frozen carbon is gradually thawing: Assessing interannual dynamics of thawed soil organic carbon stocks in the Tibetan Plateau permafrost area from 1901-2020

Large amounts of frozen carbon stored in the permafrost of the Tibetan Plateau (TP) are gradually thawing due to climate warming. The thaw of frozen carbon allows more active soil organic carbon (SOC) on the TP to participate in the global carbon cycle, which has usually been neglected in previous studies of permafrost carbon. This paper assesses the thawed SOC stock and its historical dynamics in TP permafrost areas based on a data driven scheme. The results show that the current permafrost area of the TP is 1.14 x 106 km2, and the SOC stock in the top 10 m of permafrost areas is 47.36 Pg. The active layer of the TP permafrost has a regional average thickness of 2.37 m during the baseline period (2000-2020), storing 18.19 Pg of SOC, accounting for about 38.4 % of the total SOC stock in the top 10 m, with the remaining more than 60 % perennially frozen in permafrost. The dynamics of thawed SOC are calculated based on baseline period SOC pools. Despite significant fluctuations, there is a general trend of 0.074 Pg SOC thaw per decade over 1901-2020 as the active layer has deepened. Significantly, the thaw trend of frozen SOC after 1976 is more prominent, reaching 0.420 Pg decade-1. Moreover, this paper reconstructs the SOC pool at the beginning of the last century by incorporating historical deep carbon emissions (1 10 m) in the current SOC pool. It recalculates the thaw trend of frozen carbon based on this and finds that the general thaw trend of SOC from 1901-2020 is more significant, with a rate of 0.092 Pg decade-1. Additionally, the dynamics of SOC pools in surface soils (0 1 m) of TP permafrost areas are also discussed. Our study highlights the importance of permafrost carbon thaw and provides valuable information for TP carbon studies.

Automated summary

Large amounts of frozen carbon in the permafrost of the Tibetan Plateau are thawing due to climate warming. This paper assesses the thawed soil organic carbon (SOC) stock and its historical dynamics in the permafrost areas of the Tibetan Plateau. The study shows that the thaw trend of SOC has been increasing over the past century.