Alpine permafrost could account for a quarter of thawed carbon based on Plio-Pleistocene paleoclimate analogue

Feng Cheng; Carmala Garzione; Xiangzhong Li; Ulrich Salzmann; Florian Schwarz; Alan M Haywood; Julia Tindall; Junsheng Nie; Lin Li; Lin Wang; Benjamin W Abbott; Ben Elliott; Weiguo Liu; Deepshikha Upadhyay; Alexandrea Arnold; Aradhna Tripati

doi:10.1038/s41467-022-29011-2

Alpine permafrost could account for a quarter of thawed carbon based on Plio-Pleistocene paleoclimate analogue

Nat Commun. 2022 Mar 14;13(1):1329. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-29011-2.

Authors

Feng Cheng^{1

2}, Carmala Garzione^{3

4

5}, Xiangzhong Li^{6

7}, Ulrich Salzmann⁸, Florian Schwarz⁸, Alan M Haywood⁹, Julia Tindall⁹, Junsheng Nie¹⁰, Lin Li⁵, Lin Wang¹¹, Benjamin W Abbott¹², Ben Elliott¹³, Weiguo Liu⁷, Deepshikha Upadhyay¹³, Alexandrea Arnold¹³, Aradhna Tripati¹³

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Orogenic Belts and Crustal Evolution, Ministry of Education, School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China. cfcf.chengfeng@gmail.com.
² Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, 14627, USA. cfcf.chengfeng@gmail.com.
³ Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, 14627, USA.
⁴ Department of Environmental Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, 14623, USA.
⁵ College of Science, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA.
⁶ Yunnan Key Laboratory of Earth System Science, Yunnan University, Kunming, 650500, China.
⁷ State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Science, Xi'an, 710061, China.
⁸ Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8ST, UK.
⁹ School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK.
¹⁰ Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China.
¹¹ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong SAR, China.
¹² Department of Plant and Wildlife Sciences, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA.
¹³ Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, Center for Diverse Leadership in Science, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.

Abstract

Estimates of the permafrost-climate feedback vary in magnitude and sign, partly because permafrost carbon stability in warmer-than-present conditions is not well constrained. Here we use a Plio-Pleistocene lacustrine reconstruction of mean annual air temperature (MAAT) from the Tibetan Plateau, the largest alpine permafrost region on the Earth, to constrain past and future changes in permafrost carbon storage. Clumped isotope-temperatures (Δ₄₇-T) indicate warmer MAAT (~1.2 °C) prior to 2.7 Ma, and support a permafrost-free environment on the northern Tibetan Plateau in a warmer-than-present climate. Δ₄₇-T indicate ~8.1 °C cooling from 2.7 Ma, coincident with Northern Hemisphere glacial intensification. Combined with climate models and global permafrost distribution, these results indicate, under conditions similar to mid-Pliocene Warm period (3.3-3.0 Ma), ~60% of alpine permafrost containing ~85 petagrams of carbon may be vulnerable to thawing compared to ~20% of circumarctic permafrost. This estimate highlights ~25% of permafrost carbon and the permafrost-climate feedback could originate in alpine areas.

Publication types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Carbon / analysis
Climate
European Alpine Region
Permafrost*
Temperature

Substances

Carbon

Associated data

figshare/10.6084/m9.figshare.19033130.v2

Grants and funding

Z01 SC010288/ImNIH/Intramural NIH HHS/United States