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Экология. Инженерно-экологические изыскания

Carbon dioxide release from retrogressive thaw slumps in Siberia

Авторы
БЕР К.Факультет наук о земных системах Института грунтоведения и Центр исследований земных систем и устойчивого развития Гамбургского университета, г. Гамбург, Германия
РУНГЕ А.Отдел мерзлотоведения Центра полярных и морских исследований имени Гельмгольца Института имени Альфреда Вегенера, г. Потсдам, Германия
ГРОССЕ Г.Отдел мерзлотоведения Центра полярных и морских исследований имени Гельмгольца Института имени Альфреда Вегенера; Институт наук о Земле Потсдамского университета; г. Потсдам, Германия
ХУГЕЛИУС Г.Факуьтет физической географии и Болинский центр исследований климата Стокгольмского университета, г. Стокгольм, Швеция
КНОБЛАУХ К.Факультет наук о земных системах Института грунтоведения и Центр исследований земных систем и устойчивого развития Гамбургского университета, г. Гамбург, Германия

Abstract: We present an adapted translation of the paper “Carbon dioxide release from retrogressive thaw slumps in Siberia” by German researchers (Beer et al., 2023). This paper was published in the “Environmental Research Letters” journal by the publishing company of the British scientific society “Institute of Physics” (IOP) that is now virtually international. It is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license that allows it to be distributed, translated, adapted, and supplemented, provided that the types of changes are noted and the original source is referred to. In our case, the full reference to the original paper (Beer et al., 2023) for the presented translation is given in the end. Thawing of ice-rich permafrost soils in sloped terrain can lead to activation of retrogressive thaw slumps (RTSs) which make organic matter available for decomposition that has been frozen for centuries to millennia. Recent studies show that the area affected by RTSs increased in the last two decades across the pan-Arctic. Combining a model of soil carbon dynamics with remotely sensed spatial details of thaw slump area and a soil carbon database, the authors show that RTSs in Siberia turned a previous quasi-neutral ecosystem into a strong source of carbon dioxide (on the average 367±213 g of carbon atoms from 1 m2 of RTS per a year). On a global scale, recent emissions from Siberian thaw slumps of 0.42±0.22 Tg carbon per a year have been negligible so far. However, depending on the future evolution of permafrost thaw and hence thaw slump-affected area, such hillslope processes can transition permafrost landscapes to become a major source of additional CO2 release into the atmosphere.
 

Keywords: permafrost; climate warming; hillslope; retrogressive thaw slump (RTS); organic matter; microbial decomposition; organic carbon; carbon dioxide; emission.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.58339/2949-0677-2024-6-1/2-64-73

UDC: 551.343; 551.345; 551.583

 

For citation: Beer Ch., Runge A., Grosse G., Hugelius G., Knoblauch Ch. Vybrosy uglekislogo gaza iz retrogressivnyh opolzney pri tayanii mnogoletney merzloty v Sibiri [Carbon dioxide release from retrogressive thaw slumps in Siberia] (translated from English into Russian) // Geoinfo. 2024. T. 6. № 1/2. S. 64–73 DOI:10.58339/2949-0677-2024-6-1/2-64-73 (in Rus.).
 

Funding: The authors are grateful for financial support from DFG- BE 6485/1-1, DFG-BE 6485/4-1, ESA CCI programme, ESA CCI+Permafrost programme (EU Horizon 2020 Arctic Passion project, grant No. 101003472), BMBF KoPf Synthesis project (grant No. 03F0834B), as well as support from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (KOPF-Synthesis Project 03F0834A) and the Cluster of Excellence CLICCS (EXC2037/1) of the University of Hamburg.
 

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Article in RSCI: https://www.elibrary.ru/item.asp?id=71171294