Research and Publications - Department of Human Environmental Sciences, General

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Browsing Research and Publications - Department of Human Environmental Sciences, General by Author "Abbott, Benjamin W."

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    Large loss of CO2 in winter observed across the northern permafrost region
    (Nature Portfolio, 2019) Natali, Susan M.; Watts, Jennifer D.; Rogers, Brendan M.; Potter, Stefano; Ludwig, Sarah M.; Selbmann, Anne-Katrin; Sullivan, Patrick F.; Abbott, Benjamin W.; Arndt, Kyle A.; Birch, Leah; Bjorkman, Mats P.; Bloom, A. Anthony; Celis, Gerardo; Christensen, Torben R.; Christiansen, Casper T.; Commane, Roisin; Cooper, Elisabeth J.; Crill, Patrick; Czimczik, Claudia; Davydov, Sergey; Du, Jinyang; Egan, Jocelyn E.; Elberling, Bo; Euskirchen, Eugenie S.; Friborg, Thomas; Genet, Helene; Goeckede, Mathias; Goodrich, Jordan P.; Grogan, Paul; Helbig, Manuel; Jafarov, Elchin E.; Jastrow, Julie D.; Kalhori, Aram A. M.; Kim, Yongwon; Kimball, John S.; Kutzbach, Lars; Lara, Mark J.; Larsen, Klaus S.; Lee, Bang-Yong; Liu, Zhihua; Loranty, Michael M.; Lund, Magnus; Lupascu, Massimo; Madani, Nima; Malhotra, Avni; Matamala, Roser; McFarland, Jack; McGuire, A. David; Michelsen, Anders; Minions, Christina; Oechel, Walter C.; Olefeldt, David; Parmentier, Frans-Jan W.; Pirk, Norbert; Poulter, Ben; Quinton, William; Rezanezhad, Fereidoun; Risk, David; Sachs, Torsten; Schaefer, Kevin; Schmidt, Niels M.; Schuur, Edward A. G.; Semenchuk, Philipp R.; Shaver, Gaius; Sonnentag, Oliver; Starr, Gregory; Treat, Claire C.; Waldrop, Mark P.; Wang, Yihui; Welker, Jeffrey; Wille, Christian; Xu, Xiaofeng; Zhang, Zhen; Zhuang, Qianlai; Zona, Donatella; Woods Hole Research Center; University of Bayreuth; University of Alaska Anchorage; Brigham Young University; San Diego State University; University of Gothenburg; National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA); NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL); California Institute of Technology; Northern Arizona University; Aarhus University; Norwegian Research Centre (NORCE); Columbia University; UiT The Arctic University of Tromso; Stockholm University; University of California Irvine; Pacific Geographical Institute of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences; University of Montana; Dalhousie University; University of Copenhagen; University of Alaska Fairbanks; Max Planck Society; University of California San Diego; Scripps Institution of Oceanography; Queens University - Canada; McMaster University; Universite de Montreal; United States Department of Energy (DOE); Los Alamos National Laboratory; Argonne National Laboratory; University of Hamburg; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Korea Polar Research Institute (KOPRI); Chinese Academy of Sciences; Shenyang Institute of Applied Ecology, CAS; Colgate University; National University of Singapore; Stanford University; United States Department of the Interior; United States Geological Survey; University of Exeter; University of Alberta; University of Oslo; Lund University; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; Wilfrid Laurier University; University of Waterloo; Saint Francis Xavier University - Canada; Helmholtz Association; Helmholtz-Center Potsdam GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences; University of Colorado Boulder; University of Vienna; Marine Biological Laboratory - Woods Hole; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa; University of Eastern Finland; University of Oulu; University of Maryland College Park; Purdue University; Purdue University West Lafayette Campus; University of Sheffield
    Recent warming in the Arctic, which has been amplified during the winter(1-3), greatly enhances microbial decomposition of soil organic matter and subsequent release of carbon dioxide (CO2)(4). However, the amount of CO2 released in winter is not known and has not been well represented by ecosystem models or empirically based estimates(5,6). Here we synthesize regional in situ observations of CO2 flux from Arctic and boreal soils to assess current and future winter carbon losses from the northern permafrost domain. We estimate a contemporary loss of 1,662 TgC per year from the permafrost region during the winter season (October-April). This loss is greater than the average growing season carbon uptake for this region estimated from process models (-1,032 TgC per year). Extending model predictions to warmer conditions up to 2100 indicates that winter CO2 emissions will increase 17% under a moderate mitigation scenario-Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5-and 41% under business-as-usual emissions scenario-Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5. Our results provide a baseline for winter CO2 emissions from northern terrestrial regions and indicate that enhanced soil CO2 loss due to winter warming may offset growing season carbon uptake under future climatic conditions.