The paleoclimatic footprint in the soil carbon stock of the Tibetan permafrost region

Jinzhi Ding; Tao Wang; Shilong Piao; Pete Smith; Ganlin  Zhang; Zhengjie Yan; Shuai Ren; Dan Liu; Shiping Wang; Shengyun Chen; Fuqiang Dai; Jin-Sheng He; Yingnian Li; Yongwen Liu; Jiafu Mao; Altaf Arain; Hanqin Tian; Xiaoying Shi; Yuanhe Yang; Ning Zeng; Lin Zhao

doi:10.1038/s41467-019-12214-5

The paleoclimatic footprint in the soil carbon stock of the Tibetan permafrost region

Jinzhi Ding, Tao Wang (Corresponding Author), Shilong Piao, Pete Smith, Ganlin Zhang, Zhengjie Yan, Shuai Ren, Dan Liu, Shiping Wang, Shengyun Chen, Fuqiang Dai, Jin-Sheng He, Yingnian Li, Yongwen Liu, Jiafu Mao, Altaf Arain, Hanqin Tian, Xiaoying Shi, Yuanhe Yang, Ning ZengLin Zhao

Aberdeen Centre For Environmental Sustainability

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Abstract

Tibetan permafrost largely formed during the late Pleistocene glacial period and shrank in the Holocene Thermal Maximum period. Quantifying the impacts of paleoclimatic extremes on soil carbon stock can shed light on the vulnerability of permafrost carbon in the future. Here, we synthesize data from 1114 sites across the Tibetan permafrost region to report that paleoclimate is more important than modern climate in shaping current permafrost carbon distribution, and its importance increases with soil depth, mainly through forming the soil physiochemical properties. We derive a new estimate of modern soil carbon stock to 3 m depth by including the paleoclimate effects, and find that the stock (36.6 -2.4+2.3 PgC) is triple that predicted by ecosystem models (11.5 ± 4.2 s.e.m PgC), which use pre-industrial climate to initialize the soil carbon pool. The discrepancy highlights the urgent need to incorporate paleoclimate information into model initialization for simulating permafrost soil carbon stocks.

Original language	English
Article number	4195
Journal	Nature Communications
Volume	10
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12214-5
Publication status	Published - 13 Sep 2019

Keywords

carbon cycle
cryospheric science
paleoclimate
STORAGE
MATTER
CATION-EXCHANGE
STABILIZATION
CLIMATE-CHANGE
MECHANISMS
PLATEAU
ORGANIC-CARBON
DEGRADATION
PEDOGENESIS

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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@article{b798b136b2d245b884c044f27425d0d4,

title = "The paleoclimatic footprint in the soil carbon stock of the Tibetan permafrost region",

abstract = "Tibetan permafrost largely formed during the late Pleistocene glacial period and shrank in the Holocene Thermal Maximum period. Quantifying the impacts of paleoclimatic extremes on soil carbon stock can shed light on the vulnerability of permafrost carbon in the future. Here, we synthesize data from 1114 sites across the Tibetan permafrost region to report that paleoclimate is more important than modern climate in shaping current permafrost carbon distribution, and its importance increases with soil depth, mainly through forming the soil physiochemical properties. We derive a new estimate of modern soil carbon stock to 3 m depth by including the paleoclimate effects, and find that the stock (36.6 -2.4+2.3 PgC) is triple that predicted by ecosystem models (11.5 ± 4.2 s.e.m PgC), which use pre-industrial climate to initialize the soil carbon pool. The discrepancy highlights the urgent need to incorporate paleoclimate information into model initialization for simulating permafrost soil carbon stocks.",

keywords = "carbon cycle, cryospheric science, paleoclimate, STORAGE, MATTER, CATION-EXCHANGE, STABILIZATION, CLIMATE-CHANGE, MECHANISMS, PLATEAU, ORGANIC-CARBON, DEGRADATION, PEDOGENESIS",

author = "Jinzhi Ding and Tao Wang and Shilong Piao and Pete Smith and Ganlin Zhang and Zhengjie Yan and Shuai Ren and Dan Liu and Shiping Wang and Shengyun Chen and Fuqiang Dai and Jin-Sheng He and Yingnian Li and Yongwen Liu and Jiafu Mao and Altaf Arain and Hanqin Tian and Xiaoying Shi and Yuanhe Yang and Ning Zeng and Lin Zhao",

note = "Data and code availability The authors declare that the majority of the data supporting the findings of this study are available through the links given in the paper. The unpublished data are available from the corresponding author upon request. The new estimate of Tibetan soil carbon stock and R code are available in a persistent repository (https://figshare.com/s/4374f28d880f366eff6d). Acknowledgements This study was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program (A) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA20050101), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41871104), Key Research and Development Programs for Global Change and Adaptation (2017YFA0603604), International Partnership Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (131C11KYSB20160061) and the Thousand Youth Talents Plan project in China. Jinzhi Ding acknowledges the General (2017M620922) and the Special Grade (2018T110144) of the Financial Grant from the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation. ",

year = "2019",

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doi = "10.1038/s41467-019-12214-5",

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issn = "2041-1723",

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AU - Ding, Jinzhi

AU - Wang, Tao

AU - Piao, Shilong

AU - Smith, Pete

AU - Zhang, Ganlin

AU - Yan, Zhengjie

AU - Ren, Shuai

AU - Liu, Dan

AU - Wang, Shiping

AU - Chen, Shengyun

AU - Dai, Fuqiang

AU - He, Jin-Sheng

AU - Li, Yingnian

AU - Liu, Yongwen

AU - Mao, Jiafu

AU - Arain, Altaf

AU - Tian, Hanqin

AU - Shi, Xiaoying

AU - Yang, Yuanhe

AU - Zeng, Ning

AU - Zhao, Lin

N1 - Data and code availability The authors declare that the majority of the data supporting the findings of this study are available through the links given in the paper. The unpublished data are available from the corresponding author upon request. The new estimate of Tibetan soil carbon stock and R code are available in a persistent repository (https://figshare.com/s/4374f28d880f366eff6d). Acknowledgements This study was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program (A) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA20050101), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41871104), Key Research and Development Programs for Global Change and Adaptation (2017YFA0603604), International Partnership Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (131C11KYSB20160061) and the Thousand Youth Talents Plan project in China. Jinzhi Ding acknowledges the General (2017M620922) and the Special Grade (2018T110144) of the Financial Grant from the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation.

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Y1 - 2019/9/13

N2 - Tibetan permafrost largely formed during the late Pleistocene glacial period and shrank in the Holocene Thermal Maximum period. Quantifying the impacts of paleoclimatic extremes on soil carbon stock can shed light on the vulnerability of permafrost carbon in the future. Here, we synthesize data from 1114 sites across the Tibetan permafrost region to report that paleoclimate is more important than modern climate in shaping current permafrost carbon distribution, and its importance increases with soil depth, mainly through forming the soil physiochemical properties. We derive a new estimate of modern soil carbon stock to 3 m depth by including the paleoclimate effects, and find that the stock (36.6 -2.4+2.3 PgC) is triple that predicted by ecosystem models (11.5 ± 4.2 s.e.m PgC), which use pre-industrial climate to initialize the soil carbon pool. The discrepancy highlights the urgent need to incorporate paleoclimate information into model initialization for simulating permafrost soil carbon stocks.

AB - Tibetan permafrost largely formed during the late Pleistocene glacial period and shrank in the Holocene Thermal Maximum period. Quantifying the impacts of paleoclimatic extremes on soil carbon stock can shed light on the vulnerability of permafrost carbon in the future. Here, we synthesize data from 1114 sites across the Tibetan permafrost region to report that paleoclimate is more important than modern climate in shaping current permafrost carbon distribution, and its importance increases with soil depth, mainly through forming the soil physiochemical properties. We derive a new estimate of modern soil carbon stock to 3 m depth by including the paleoclimate effects, and find that the stock (36.6 -2.4+2.3 PgC) is triple that predicted by ecosystem models (11.5 ± 4.2 s.e.m PgC), which use pre-industrial climate to initialize the soil carbon pool. The discrepancy highlights the urgent need to incorporate paleoclimate information into model initialization for simulating permafrost soil carbon stocks.

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KW - cryospheric science

KW - paleoclimate

KW - STORAGE

KW - MATTER

KW - CATION-EXCHANGE

KW - STABILIZATION

KW - CLIMATE-CHANGE

KW - MECHANISMS

KW - PLATEAU

KW - ORGANIC-CARBON

KW - DEGRADATION

KW - PEDOGENESIS

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U2 - 10.1038/s41467-019-12214-5

DO - 10.1038/s41467-019-12214-5

M3 - Article

C2 - 31519899

VL - 10

JO - Nature Communications

JF - Nature Communications

SN - 2041-1723

M1 - 4195

ER -

The paleoclimatic footprint in the soil carbon stock of the Tibetan permafrost region

Abstract

Keywords

UN SDGs

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