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Research papers on Permafrost thaw and methane

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  3. Permafrost carbon-climate feedbacks accelerate global warming

    Charles D. Koven, Bruno Ringeval, Pierre Friedlingstein, et al. · 2011 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 912 citations

    Permafrost soils contain enormous amounts of organic carbon, which could act as a positive feedback to global climate change due to enhanced respiration rates with warming. We have used a terrestrial ecosystem model that includes permafrost carbon dynamics, inhibition of respiration in frozen soil layers, vertical mixing of soil carbon from surface to permafrost layers, and CH(4) emissions from flooded areas, and which better matches new circumpolar inventories of soil carbon stocks, to explore the potential for carbon-climate feedbacks at high latitudes. Contrary to model results for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC AR4), when permafrost processes

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  4. Permafrost and Climate Change: Carbon Cycle Feedbacks From the Warming Arctic

    Edward A. G. Schuur, Benjamin W. Abbott, Roisin Commane, et al. · 2022 · Annual Review of Environment and Resources · 454 citations

    Rapid Arctic environmental change affects the entire Earth system as thawing permafrost ecosystems release greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Understanding how much permafrost carbon will be released, over what time frame, and what the relative emissions of carbon dioxide and methane will be is key for understanding the impact on global climate. In addition, the response of vegetation in a warming climate has the potential to offset at least some of the accelerating feedback to the climate from permafrost carbon. Temperature, organic carbon, and ground ice are key regulators for determining the impact of permafrost ecosystems on the global carbon cycle. Together, these encompass services of

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  6. The impact of the permafrost carbon feedback on global climate

    Kevin M. Schaefer, Hugues Lantuit, V. E. Romanovsky, et al. · 2014 · Environmental Research Letters · 395 citations

    Degrading permafrost can alter ecosystems, damage infrastructure, and release enough carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and methane (CH 4 ) to influence global climate. The permafrost carbon feedback (PCF) is the amplification of surface warming due to CO 2 and CH 4 emissions from thawing permafrost. An analysis of available estimates PCF strength and timing indicate 120 ± 85 Gt of carbon emissions from thawing permafrost by 2100. This is equivalent to 5.7 ± 4.0% of total anthropogenic emissions for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) representative concentration pathway (RCP) 8.5 scenario and would increase global temperatures by 0.29 ± 0.21 °C or 7.8 ± 5.7%. For RCP4.5, the scenario c

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  10. Potential feedback of thawing permafrost to the global climate system through methane emission

    O. A. Anisimov · 2007 · Environmental Research Letters · 145 citations

    Large amounts of soil carbon deposited in permafrost may be released due to deeper seasonal thawing under the climatic conditions projected for the future. An increase in the volume of the available organic material together with the higher ground temperatures may lead to enhanced emission of greenhouse gasses. Particular concerns are associated with methane, which has a much stronger greenhouse effect than an equal amount of CO 2 . Production of methane is favored in the wetlands, which occupy up to 0.7 million km 2 in Russian permafrost regions and have accumulated about 50 Gt of carbon (Gt C). We used the permafrost model and several climatic scenarios to construct projections of the soil

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  12. Permafrost degradation and methane: low risk of biogeochemical climate-warming feedback

    Xiang Gao, Courtney Adam Schlosser, Andrei Sokolov, et al. · 2013 · Environmental Research Letters · 60 citations

    Climate change and permafrost thaw have been suggested to increase high latitude methane emissions that could potentially represent a strong feedback to the climate system. Using an integrated earth-system model framework, we examine the degradation of near-surface permafrost, temporal dynamics of inundation (lakes and wetlands) induced by hydro-climatic change, subsequent methane emission, and potential climate feedback. We find that increases in atmospheric CH 4 and its radiative forcing, which result from the thawed, inundated emission sources, are small, particularly when weighed against human emissions. The additional warming, across the range of climate policy and uncertainties in the

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  15. Decadal-scale hotspot methane ebullition within lakes following abrupt permafrost thaw

    K. W. Walter Anthony, P. Lindgren, P. Hanke, et al. · 2020 · Environmental Research Letters · 45 citations

    Thermokarst lakes accelerate deep permafrost thaw and the mobilization of previously frozen soil organic carbon. This leads to microbial decomposition and large releases of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) that enhance climate warming. However, the time scale of permafrost-carbon emissions following thaw is not well known but is important for understanding how abrupt permafrost thaw impacts climate feedback. We combined field measurements and radiocarbon dating of CH4 ebullition with (a) an assessment of lake area changes delineated from high-resolution (1–2.5 m) optical imagery and (b) geophysical measurements of thaw bulbs (taliks) to determine the spatiotemporal dynamics of hotspot-

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  16. The next generation of climate model should account for the evolution of mineral-organic interactions with permafrost thaw

    S. Opfergelt · 2020 · Environmental Research Letters · 40 citations

    The Earth’s high latitude regions are warming twice as fast as the global average which enhances the thawing of permafrost, i.e. the perennially frozen ground which underlies about 25% of the exposed land surface in the Northern Hemisphere (Brown et al 1998). Permafrost thaw exposes previously frozen organic carbon (OC) to microbial decomposition with subsequent emission of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) into the atmosphere, creating positive feedback on global warming, i.e. the permafrost carbon feedback (Schuur et al 2015). Permafrost contains 1460–1600 GtC, almost twice the C in the atmosphere (IPCC 2019), and 15± 3% of that OC stock could be emitted as greenh

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  17. Century-scale time since permafrost thaw affects temperature sensitivity of net methane production in thermokarst-lake and talik sediments.

    J. Heslop, K. W. Walter Anthony, G. Grosse, et al. · 2019 · The Science of the total environment · 25 citations

    Permafrost thaw subjects previously frozen soil organic carbon (SOC) to microbial degradation to the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4). Emission of these gases constitutes a positive feedback to climate warming. Among numerous uncertainties in estimating the strength of this permafrost carbon feedback (PCF), two are: (i) how mineralization of permafrost SOC thawed in saturated anaerobic conditions responds to changes in temperature and (ii) how microbial communities and temperature sensitivities change over time since thaw. To address these uncertainties, we utilized a thermokarst-lake sediment core as a natural chronosequence where SOC thawed and incubated in situ unde

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  18. Carbon Dioxide and Methane Release Following Abrupt Thaw of Pleistocene Permafrost Deposits in Arctic Siberia

    C. Knoblauch, C. Beer, Alexander Schuett, et al. · 2021 · Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences · 23 citations

    The decomposition of thawing permafrost organic matter (OM) to the greenhouse gases (GHG) carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane forms a positive feedback to global climate change. Data on in situ GHG fluxes from thawing permafrost OM are scarce and OM degradability is largely unknown, causing high uncertainties in the permafrost‐carbon climate feedback. We combined in situ CO2 and methane flux measurements at an abrupt permafrost thaw feature with laboratory incubations and dynamic modeling to quantify annual CO2 release from thawing permafrost OM, estimate its in situ degradability and evaluate the explanatory power of incubation experiments. In July 2016 and 2019, CO2 fluxes ranged between 0.24

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  19. Influence of permafrost thaw on an extreme geologic methane seep

    Taylor D. Sullivan, A. Parsekian, Jane Sharp, et al. · 2021 · Permafrost and Periglacial Processes · 14 citations

    The occurrence and magnitude of natural fossil methane (CH4) emissions in the Arctic are poorly known. Emission of geologic CH4, a potent greenhouse gas, originating beneath permafrost is of particular interest due to the potential for positive feedback to climate warming, whereby accelerated permafrost thaw releases permafrost‐trapped CH4 in a future warmer climate. The development of through‐going taliks in Arctic lakes overlying hydrocarbon reservoirs is one mechanism of releasing geologically sourced, subpermafrost CH4. Here we use novel gas flux measurements, geophysical observations of the subsurface, shallow sediment coring, high‐resolution bathymetry measurements, and lake water chem

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  20. Effect of methane mitigation on global temperature under a permafrost feedback

    Hannah Bäck, Riley May, D. Naidu, et al. · 2023 · Global Environmental Change Advances · 10 citations

    Earth systems may fall into an undesirable system state if 1.5 degrees celsius (C) of warming is exceeded. Carbon release from substantial permafrost stocks vulnerable to near-term warming represents a positive climate feedback that may increase the risk of 1.5 C warming or greater. Methane (CH4) is a short-lived but powerful greenhouse gas with a global warming potential 28.5 times that of carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100 year time span. Because permafrost thaw in the coming centuries is partly determined by the warming in the 21st century, rapid reductions in methane emissions early in the 21st century could have far reaching effects. We use a reduced complexity carbon cycle model and a per

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  21. Panarctic lakes exerted a small positive feedback on early Holocene warming due to deglacial release of methane

    L. Brosius, K. W. Walter Anthony, C. Treat, et al. · 2023 · Communications Earth & Environment · 10 citations

    Climate-driven permafrost thaw can release ancient carbon to the atmosphere, begetting further warming in a positive feedback loop. Polar ice core data and young radiocarbon ages of dissolved methane in thermokarst lakes have challenged the importance of this feedback, but field studies did not adequately account for older methane released from permafrost through bubbling. We synthesized panarctic isotope and emissions datasets to derive integrated ages of panarctic lake methane fluxes. Methane age in modern thermokarst lakes (3132 ± 731 years before present) reflects remobilization of ancient carbon. Thermokarst-lake methane emissions fit within the constraints imposed by polar ice core dat

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  22. Metabolic Redox Coupling Controls Methane Production in Permafrost‐Affected Peatlands Through Organic Matter Quality‐Dependent Energy Allocation

    John A. Bouranis, Bridget B. McGivern, G. Makke, et al. · 2025 · Global Change Biology · 7 citations

    Permafrost thaw represents one of Earth's largest climate feedback risks, potentially releasing vast carbon (C) stores as greenhouse gases (GHG). However, our ability to predict emissions remains limited by poor understanding of how changing organic matter (OM) composition affects microbial carbon processing. We test a metabolism‐centered redox framework, which views microbial processes as coupled oxidative‐reductive reactions, to mechanistically explain how organic matter metabolite quality controls greenhouse gas production in permafrost‐affected peatland ecosystems. Rather than relying solely on geochemical redox measurements, our approach examines how microbes balance electron flow throu

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  24. Hydrology controls thermokarst and alters carbon cycling and methane emissions in peatlands near the southern limit of permafrost

    I. Shirley, Z. A. Mekonnen, Robert F. Grant, et al. · 2025 · Environmental Research Letters · 1 citations

    Permafrost peatlands store vast amounts of frozen carbon across northern landscapes. When ground ice melts, surface subsidence produces thermokarst landforms that expand wetlands at the edges of permafrost plateaus. Thermokarst represents an accelerating climate feedback, but uncertainties remain about how ground ice, hydrology, and vegetation interact to shape landscape change and carbon fluxes. We extended the process-based model ecosys to simulate thermokarst dynamics in laterally coupled 2D transects at a well-characterized boreal peatland site in Canada’s Northwest Territories. After benchmarking against site observations, we varied ground ice content and hydrologic boundary conditions

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