TY - JOUR
T1 - Alpine permafrost could account for a quarter of thawed carbon based on Plio-Pleistocene paleoclimate analogue
AU - Cheng, Feng
AU - Garzione, Carmala
AU - Li, Xiangzhong
AU - Salzmann, Ulrich
AU - Schwarz, Florian
AU - Haywood, Alan M.
AU - Tindall, Julia
AU - Nie, Junsheng
AU - Li, Lin
AU - Wang, Lin
AU - Abbott, Benjamin W.
AU - Elliott, Ben
AU - Liu, Weiguo
AU - Upadhyay, Deepshikha
AU - Arnold, Alexandrea
AU - Tripati, Aradhna
N1 - Funding information: We thank D. Breecker, P. Molnar, T. Herbert, G. Dupont-Nivet, K. Snell, M. Jolivet, A. Zuza, and M. Kohn for discussions regarding paleoclimate reconstruction, M. Li for guidance regarding spectral analysis, P. Higgins for providing the carbonate stable isotope methodology and training, J. Dong for helping with grain size analysis, and the Tripati Lab for assistance with clumped isotope analyses. F.C. is supported by NSFC grants (No. 41888101; 41930213). C.G. is supported by U.S. NSF grants EAR-1348005 and OISE-1545859. X.L. is supported by NSFC grants (No. 42173004; 41991323) and Yunnan Fundamental Research Projects (202001AV070012). U.S. and J.N. acknowledge financial support from the Royal Society (IE141128). A.T. and B.E. were supported by Department of Energy (DOE) DE-SC0010288, A.T., B.E., and A.A. were supported by NSF ICER-1936715. D.U. was supported by NSF EAR-1352212. B.A. was supported by the U.S. NSF grant No. 1916565. Clumped instrumentation was supported by NSF EAR-0949191.
PY - 2022/12/1
Y1 - 2022/12/1
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85126647588
U2 - 10.1038/s41467-022-29011-2
DO - 10.1038/s41467-022-29011-2
M3 - Article
C2 - 35288572
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 13
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
IS - 1
M1 - 1329
ER -
