Carbon balance in East European tundra

Abstract

We studied the carbon dioxide and methane fluxes from early June to mid‐September 2001 in the Russian tundra of northeast Europe. Gas fluxes were measured with chamber techniques to determine the seasonal (100 days) carbon gas balance for terrestrial ecosystems representing various vegetation types. Also, the gas balance for aquatic ecosystems in the region was measured. The 2001 fluxes were compared to colder and wetter season fluxes from 1999. The Sphagnum sp. dominated peat plateau fen and Carex sp. and Sphagnum sp. dominated intermediate flarks were carbon sinks of 106 and 110 g C m−2, respectively. In addition, methane emissions were highest from these sites. Other terrestrial surfaces lost carbon to the atmosphere (28–118 g C m−2). The thermokarst lake and the river had seasonal carbon losses of 15 and 34 g C m−2, respectively. For areal integration, the distributions of the various functional surfaces were classified based on Landsat TM satellite image and on‐site validation. This data was used to integrate the carbon fluxes for the entire Lek Vorkuta catchment. The upscaling indicated that the catchment (114 km2) lost 4 (±3.5) Gg C to the atmosphere in summer 2001. The results suggest that predicted warming in the tundra region would induce a substantial loss of carbon. In the warm summer of 2001, the carbon gas released from the whole northeast European tundra (area 205,000 km2) was 8 Tg C when calculated from the Lek Vorkuta data.