Arctic CO2 Research Articles

Ecosystem Scale Implication of Soil CO2 Concentration Dynamics During Soil Freezing in Alaskan Arctic Tundra Ecosystems

AbstractThe rates, processes, and controls on Arctic cold period soil carbon loss are still poorly understood. To understand one component of winter CO2 loss in the atmosphere, continuous measurements of soil (CO2) were made and compared to ecosystem scale CO2 fluxes. Measurements of soil (CO2) were made near Utqiaġvik, Alaska from the beginning of soil thaw in summer 2005 to spring 2007. In the summer, soil (CO2) rose with increased soil temperature, reaching value orders of magnitude higher than the atmospheric (CO2). Soil (CO2) initially decreased at the end of summer and beginning of fall but then increased subsequent to soil freezing. Due to complex changes in biological activity, storage, and transport processes, soil (CO2) was then approximately doubled than that was observed in the summer. After reaching peak concentrations in November, soil (CO2) steeply decreased over a couple of weeks, suggesting a substantial release of CO2 into the atmosphere and movement within the soil column. Eddy covariance (EC) measurements showed variable but continued emissions of CO2 to the atmosphere during freezeup. The disconnect between soil (CO2) and landscape level fluxes may be attributed to the spatiotemporal heterogeneity in release of high concentrations of soil (CO2) to the atmosphere during the fall; and when integrated over the area of the EC tower footprint, do not frequently result in detectable emission events. Continued monitoring of fall and winter soil (CO2) and ecosystem fluxes will be vital for further understanding the variability of interannual Arctic CO2 emissions.

Quantifying two-way influences between the Arctic and mid-latitudes through regionally increased CO2 concentrations in coupled climate simulations

In which direction is the influence larger: from the Arctic to the mid-latitudes or vice versa? To answer this question, CO2 concentrations have been regionally increased in different latitudinal belts, namely in the Arctic, in the northern mid-latitudes, everywhere outside of the Arctic and globally, in a series of 150 year coupled model experiments with the AWI Climate Model. This method is applied to allow a decomposition of the response to increasing CO2 concentrations in different regions. It turns out that CO2 increase applied in the Arctic only is very efficient in heating the Arctic and that the energy largely remains in the Arctic. In the first 30 years after switching on the CO2 forcing some robust atmospheric circulation changes, which are associated with the surface temperature anomalies including local cooling of up to 1 °C in parts of North America, are simulated. The synoptic activity is decreased in the mid-latitudes. Further into the simulation, surface temperature and atmospheric circulation anomalies become less robust. When quadrupling the CO2 concentration south of 60° N, the March Arctic sea ice volume is reduced by about two thirds in the 150 years of simulation time. When quadrupling the CO2 concentration between 30 and 60° N, the March Arctic sea ice volume is reduced by around one third, the same amount as if quadrupling CO2 north of 60° N. Both atmospheric and oceanic northward energy transport across 60° N are enhanced by up to 0.1 PW and 0.03 PW, respectively, and winter synoptic activity is increased over the Greenland, Norwegian, Iceland (GIN) seas. To a lesser extent the same happens when the CO2 concentration between 30 and 60° N is only increased to 1.65 times the reference value in order to consider the different size of the forcing areas. The increased northward energy transport, leads to Arctic sea ice reduction, and consequently Arctic amplification is present without Arctic CO2 forcing in all seasons but summer, independent of where the forcing is applied south of 60° N. South of the forcing area, both in the Arctic and northern mid-latitude forcing simulations, the warming is generally limited to less than 0.5 °C. In contrast, north of the forcing area in the northern mid-latitude forcing experiments, the warming amounts to generally more than 1 °C close to the surface, except for summer. This is a strong indication that the influence of warming outside of the Arctic on the Arctic is substantial, while forcing applied only in the Arctic mainly materializes in a warming Arctic, with relatively small implications for non-Arctic regions.

Net Community Production and Carbon Exchange From Winter to Summer in the Atlantic Water Inflow to the Arctic Ocean

The eastern Fram Strait and area north of Svalbard, are influenced by the inflow of warm Atlantic water, which is high in nutrients and CO2, influencing the carbon flux into the Arctic Ocean. However, these estimates are mainly based on summer data and there are still doubt on the size of the net ocean Arctic CO2 sink. We use data on carbonate chemistry and nutrients from three cruises in 2014 in the CarbonBridge project (January, May, and August) and one in Fram Strait (August). We describe the seasonal variability and the major drivers explaining the inorganic carbon change (CDIC) in the upper 50 m, such as photosynthesis (CBIO), and air-sea CO2 exchange (CEXCH). Remotely sensed data describes the evolution of the bloom and net community production. The focus area encompasses the meltwater-influenced domain (MWD) along the ice edge, the Atlantic water inflow (AWD) and the West Spitsbergen shelf (SD). The CBIO was 2.2 mol C m-2 in the MWD derived from the nitrate consumption between January and May. Between January and August, the CBIO was 3.0 mol C m-2 in the AWD, thus CBIO between May and August was 0.8 mol C m-2. The ocean in our study area mainly acted as a CO2 sink throughout the period. The mean CO2 sink varied between 0.1 and 2.1 mol C m-2 in the AWD in August. By the end of August, the AWD acted as a CO2 source of 0.7 mol C m-2, attributed to vertical mixing of CO2- rich waters and contribution from respiratory CO2 as net community production declined. The oceanic CO2 uptake (CEXCH) from the atmosphere had an impact on CDIC between 5 to 36%, which is of similar magnitude as the impact of the calcium carbonate (CaCO3, CCALC) dissolution of 6% to 18%. CCALC was attributed to be caused by a combination of the sea-ice ikaite dissolution and dissolution of advected CaCO3 shells from the south. Indications of denitrification were observed, associated with sea-ice meltwater and bottom shelf processes. CBIO played a major role (48 to 89%) for the impact on CDIC.

Drivers of multi-century trends in the atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> mean annual cycle in a prognostic ESM

Abstract. The amplitude of the mean annual cycle of atmospheric CO2 is a diagnostic of seasonal surface–atmosphere carbon exchange. Atmospheric observations show that this quantity has increased over most of the Northern Hemisphere (NH) extratropics during the last 3 decades, likely from a combination of enhanced atmospheric CO2, climate change, and anthropogenic land use change. Accurate climate prediction requires accounting for long-term interactions between the environment and carbon cycling; thus, analysis of the evolution of the mean annual cycle in a fully prognostic Earth system model may provide insight into the multi-decadal influence of environmental change on the carbon cycle. We analyzed the evolution of the mean annual cycle in atmospheric CO2 simulated by the Community Earth System Model (CESM) from 1950 to 2300 under three scenarios designed to separate the effects of climate change, atmospheric CO2 fertilization, and land use change. The NH CO2 seasonal amplitude increase in the CESM mainly reflected enhanced primary productivity during the growing season due to climate change and the combined effects of CO2 fertilization and nitrogen deposition over the mid- and high latitudes. However, the simulations revealed shifts in key climate drivers of the atmospheric CO2 seasonality that were not apparent before 2100. CO2 fertilization and nitrogen deposition in boreal and temperate ecosystems were the largest contributors to mean annual cycle amplification over the midlatitudes for the duration of the simulation (1950–2300). Climate change from boreal ecosystems was the main driver of Arctic CO2 annual cycle amplification between 1950 and 2100, but CO2 fertilization had a stronger effect on the Arctic CO2 annual cycle amplitude during 2100–2300. Prior to 2100, the NH CO2 annual cycle amplitude increased in conjunction with an increase in the NH land carbon sink. However, these trends decoupled after 2100, underscoring that an increasing atmospheric CO2 annual cycle amplitude does not necessarily imply a strengthened terrestrial carbon sink.

Large CO2 and CH4 emissions from polygonal tundra during spring thaw in northern Alaska

AbstractThe few prethaw observations of tundra carbon fluxes suggest that there may be large spring releases, but little is known about the scale and underlying mechanisms of this phenomenon. To address these questions, we combined ecosystem eddy flux measurements from two towers near Barrow, Alaska, with mechanistic soil‐core thawing experiment. During a 2 week period prior to snowmelt in 2014, large fluxes were measured, reducing net summer uptake of CO2 by 46% and adding 6% to cumulative CH4 emissions. Emission pulses were linked to unique rain‐on‐snow events enhancing soil cracking. Controlled laboratory experiment revealed that as surface ice thaws, an immediate, large pulse of trapped gases is emitted. These results suggest that the Arctic CO2 and CH4 spring pulse is a delayed release of biogenic gas production from the previous fall and that the pulse can be large enough to offset a significant fraction of the moderate Arctic tundra carbon sink.

Spatial variation in landscape‐level CO2 and CH4 fluxes from arctic coastal tundra: influence from vegetation, wetness, and the thaw lake cycle

Regional quantification of arctic CO2 and CH4 fluxes remains difficult due to high landscape heterogeneity coupled with a sparse measurement network. Most of the arctic coastal tundra near Barrow, Alaska is part of the thaw lake cycle, which includes current thaw lakes and a 5500-year chronosequence of vegetated thaw lake basins. However, spatial variability in carbon fluxes from these features remains grossly understudied. Here, we present an analysis of whole-ecosystem CO2 and CH4 fluxes from 20 thaw lake cycle features during the 2011 growing season. We found that the thaw lake cycle was largely responsible for spatial variation in CO2 flux, mostly due to its control on gross primary productivity (GPP). Current lakes were significant CO2 sources that varied little. Vegetated basins showed declining GPP and CO2 sink with age (R(2) = 67% and 57%, respectively). CH4 fluxes measured from a subset of 12 vegetated basins showed no relationship with age or CO2 flux components. Instead, higher CH4 fluxes were related to greater landscape wetness (R(2) = 57%) and thaw depth (additional R(2) = 28%). Spatial variation in CO2 and CH4 fluxes had good satellite remote sensing indicators, and we estimated the region to be a small CO2 sink of -4.9 ± 2.4 (SE) g C m(-2) between 11 June and 25 August, which was countered by a CH4 source of 2.1 ± 0.2 (SE) g C m(-2) . Results from our scaling exercise showed that developing or validating regional estimates based on single tower sites can result in significant bias, on average by a factor 4 for CO2 flux and 30% for CH4 flux. Although our results are specific to the Arctic Coastal Plain of Alaska, the degree of landscape-scale variability, large-scale controls on carbon exchange, and implications for regional estimation seen here likely have wide relevance to other arctic landscapes.

Global climate change and its impacts on the terrestrial Arctic carbon cycle with special regards to ecosystem components and the greenhouse‐gas balance

AbstractThe climatic changes on earth may have serious implications for the carbon (C) cycle in the terrestrial Arctic throughout the 21st century. Arctic vegetation takes up carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere producing biomass. In a cold and often moist soil environment, dead organic matter is preferentially preserved as soil organic matter (SOM) due to the inhibition of decomposition processes. However, viable soil microbes exhale huge amounts of CO2 and methane (CH4) annually. Hence, Arctic ecosystems exhibit annual fluxes of both carbon‐based (CO2 and CH4) greenhouse gases (GHGs) that are in an order of magnitude of millions of tons. Rising Arctic temperatures lead to the degradation of much of today's permafrost in the long run. As a result, large quantities of frozen SOM may become available for decomposers, and GHGs that are entrapped in permafrost may be released. At the same time, warming tends to stimulate the growth, development, and reproduction of many Arctic plants, at least transiently. The present northward migration of boreal shrubs and trees into southern tundra areas may be amplified by that, increasing the ecosystems' gross primary production and, thus, their C sequestration. On the other hand, rising temperatures boost SOM decomposition and microbial respiration rates. In general, soil temperature and soil moisture are key environmental variables to control the intensity of aerobic and anaerobic respiration by microbes, and autotrophic respiration by plants.On the basis of published data on Arctic CO2 and CH4 fluxes, the calculations on the terrestrial C‐based Arctic GHG balance made in this review reveal a current annual GHG exchange that ranges between a weak storage of ≤ 225 Tg CO2 equivalent (eq.) y–1 and a huge release of ≤ 1990 Tg CO2 eq. y–1. Hence, the Arctic GHG balance does apparently already contribute positively to the climatic changes at present. Regarding the future, the relative development of the uptake and release of CO2 and CH4 by northern ecosystems is fundamental to the overall GHG status of the Arctic under scenarios of continued climate change.

Spatial variation in regional CO2 exchange for the Kuparuk River Basin, Alaska over the summer growing season

AbstractThe spatial and temporal patterns in CO2 flux for the Kuparuk River Basin, a 9200‐km2 watershed located in NE Alaska were estimated using the Regional Arctic CO2 Exchange Simulator (RACES) for the 1994–1995 growing seasons. RACES uses non‐linear models and a Geographical Information System database (GIS) consisting of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and dynamic temperature and radiation maps. The spatial and temporal patterns in the NDVI during both growing seasons suggest that ecosystem development occurred 2–4 weeks earlier and was relatively more rapid in the southern portion of the Kuparuk River Basin. Rates of gross primary production (GPP) and whole‐ecosystem respiration (R) were 2–4 fold higher in the southern basin than along the arctic coastal plain depending on time of year. The higher rate of GPP estimated for the southern basin was primarily due to higher NDVI values, while the higher R estimated for the southern basin was due in part to higher temperature and the NDVI. While GPP and R showed strong latitudinal trends, spatial and temporal trends in net ecosystem CO2 exchange (NEE) were much more variable. Thus, while spatial trends in carbon gain (GPP) and loss (R) were highly correlated, small spatial and temporal differences in these large fluxes (GPP and/or R) lead to corresponding large spatial variations in the NEE.

Anthropogenic and biogenic winter sources of Arctic CO2— a model study

Long-range transport of anthropogenic and biogenic CO2 to a remote site in the Arctic is studied. A limited area, off-line, Eulerian atmospheric transport model is used, and the results are compared to the observed CO2 concentration at the ‘Ny-Alesund International Arctic Research and Monitoring Facility’. Inventories of anthropogenic CO2 emissions and estimates of biogenic CO2 emissions are used to investigate the respective impact of these emissions on Arctic CO2 variations during 4 winter months. A direct comparison of the modelled and observed concentrations reveals remarkably good timing in the modelled variations as compared to the observed variations for most of the time. The correlation of observed versus modelled CO2 concentration is significant at the 95% confidence level. The biogenic and the anthropogenic CO2 emissions are shown to have approximately equal influence on Arctic CO2 variations during winter. Europe is found to be the dominant source of anthropogenic CO2 at the monitoring station, while Siberia and Northern America have little influence on Arctic CO2, during the months studied. These results contradict Engardt and Holmén whose results indicate that the lower-Ob region in western Siberia has a large impact on Arctic CO2.