Spatial heterogeneity and environmental predictors of permafrost region soil organic carbon stocks

Umakant Mishra; Gustaf Hugelius; Eitan Shelef; Yuanhe Yang; Jens Strauss; Alexey Lupachev; Jennifer W Harden; Julie D Jastrow; Chien-Lu Ping; William J Riley; Edward A G Schuur; Roser Matamala; Matthias Siewert; Lucas E Nave; Charles D Koven; Matthias Fuchs; Juri Palmtag; Peter Kuhry; Claire C Treat; Sebastian Zubrzycki; Forrest M Hoffman; Bo Elberling; Philip Camill; Alexandra Veremeeva; Andrew Orr

doi:10.1126/sciadv.aaz5236

Spatial heterogeneity and environmental predictors of permafrost region soil organic carbon stocks

Sci Adv. 2021 Feb 24;7(9):eaaz5236. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aaz5236. Print 2021 Feb.

Authors

Umakant Mishra¹, Gustaf Hugelius², Eitan Shelef³, Yuanhe Yang⁴, Jens Strauss⁵, Alexey Lupachev⁶, Jennifer W Harden^{7

8}, Julie D Jastrow⁹, Chien-Lu Ping¹⁰, William J Riley¹¹, Edward A G Schuur¹², Roser Matamala⁹, Matthias Siewert¹³, Lucas E Nave¹⁴, Charles D Koven¹¹, Matthias Fuchs⁵, Juri Palmtag¹⁵, Peter Kuhry², Claire C Treat⁵, Sebastian Zubrzycki¹⁶, Forrest M Hoffman^{17

18}, Bo Elberling¹⁹, Philip Camill²⁰, Alexandra Veremeeva⁶, Andrew Orr⁹

Affiliations

¹ Environmental Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Avenue, Argonne, IL, USA. umishra@sandia.gov.
² Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
³ Department of Geology and Environmental Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100093 Beijing, China.
⁵ Permafrost Research Section, Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Potsdam, Germany.
⁶ Institute of Physico-Chemical and Biological Problems in Soil Science, Russian Academy of Sciences, Puschchino, Russia.
⁷ School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
⁸ Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, P.O. Box 757000, Fairbanks, AK, USA.
⁹ Environmental Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Avenue, Argonne, IL, USA.
¹⁰ Palmer Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Palmer, AK, USA.
¹¹ Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA.
¹² Center for Ecosystem Science and Society, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA.
¹³ Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Umea University, Sweden.
¹⁴ Biological Station, University of Michigan, Pellston, MI, USA.
¹⁵ Department of Geography and Environment, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
¹⁶ Institute of Soil Science, Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability (CEN), Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.
¹⁷ Climate Change Institute, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, USA.
¹⁸ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Tennessee, 325 John D. Tickle Building, 851 Neyland Drive, Knoxville, TN, USA.
¹⁹ CENPERM (Center for Permafrost), Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
²⁰ Earth and Oceanographic Science Department and Environmental Studies Program, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME, USA.

Abstract

Large stocks of soil organic carbon (SOC) have accumulated in the Northern Hemisphere permafrost region, but their current amounts and future fate remain uncertain. By analyzing dataset combining >2700 soil profiles with environmental variables in a geospatial framework, we generated spatially explicit estimates of permafrost-region SOC stocks, quantified spatial heterogeneity, and identified key environmental predictors. We estimated that Pg C are stored in the top 3 m of permafrost region soils. The greatest uncertainties occurred in circumpolar toe-slope positions and in flat areas of the Tibetan region. We found that soil wetness index and elevation are the dominant topographic controllers and surface air temperature (circumpolar region) and precipitation (Tibetan region) are significant climatic controllers of SOC stocks. Our results provide first high-resolution geospatial assessment of permafrost region SOC stocks and their relationships with environmental factors, which are crucial for modeling the response of permafrost affected soils to changing climate.

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