The paleoclimatic footprint in the soil carbon stock of the Tibetan permafrost region

Jinzhi Ding; Tao Wang; Shilong Piao; Pete Smith; Ganlin Zhang; Zhengjie Yan; Shuai Ren; Dan Liu; Shiping Wang; Shengyun Chen; Fuqiang Dai; Jinsheng He; Yingnian Li; Yongwen Liu; Jiafu Mao; Altaf Arain; Hanqin Tian; Xiaoying Shi; Yuanhe Yang; Ning Zeng; Lin Zhao

doi:10.1038/s41467-019-12214-5

The paleoclimatic footprint in the soil carbon stock of the Tibetan permafrost region

Jinzhi Ding, Tao Wang, Shilong Piao, Pete Smith, Ganlin Zhang, Zhengjie Yan, Shuai Ren, Dan Liu, Shiping Wang, Shengyun Chen, Fuqiang Dai, Jinsheng He, Yingnian Li, Yongwen Liu, Jiafu Mao, Altaf Arain, Hanqin Tian, Xiaoying Shi, Yuanhe Yang, Ning ZengLin Zhao

Earth Systems Modeling

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

52 Scopus citations

Abstract

Tibetan permafrost largely formed during the late Pleistocene glacial period and shrank in the Holocene Thermal Maximum period. Quantifying the impacts of paleoclimatic extremes on soil carbon stock can shed light on the vulnerability of permafrost carbon in the future. Here, we synthesize data from 1114 sites across the Tibetan permafrost region to report that paleoclimate is more important than modern climate in shaping current permafrost carbon distribution, and its importance increases with soil depth, mainly through forming the soilʼs physiochemical properties. We derive a new estimate of modern soil carbon stock to 3 m depth by including the paleoclimate effects, and find that the stock (36.6-2.4+2.3 PgC) is triple that predicted by ecosystem models (11.5 ± 4.2 s.e.m PgC), which use pre-industrial climate to initialize the soil carbon pool. The discrepancy highlights the urgent need to incorporate paleoclimate information into model initialization for simulating permafrost soil carbon stocks.

Original language	English
Article number	4195
Journal	Nature Communications
Volume	10
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12214-5
State	Published - Dec 1 2019

Funding

This study was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program (A) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA20050101), the second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program (2019QZKK0606), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41871104, 41530528), and Key Research and Development Programs for Global Change and Adaptation (2017YFA0603604). Jinzhi Ding acknowledges the General (2017M620922) and the Special Grade (2018T110144) of the Financial Grant from the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation.

Funders	Funder number
Key Research and Development Programs for Global Change and Adaptation	2017M620922, 2017YFA0603604, 2018T110144
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council	BB/N013484/1
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
Natural Environment Research Council	NE/P019455/1
Natural Environment Research Council
National Natural Science Foundation of China	41530528, 41871104
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Chinese Academy of Sciences	XDA20050101, 2019QZKK0606
Chinese Academy of Sciences
China Postdoctoral Science Foundation

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Ding, J., Wang, T., Piao, S., Smith, P., Zhang, G., Yan, Z., Ren, S., Liu, D., Wang, S., Chen, S., Dai, F., He, J., Li, Y., Liu, Y., Mao, J., Arain, A., Tian, H., Shi, X., Yang, Y., ... Zhao, L. (2019). The paleoclimatic footprint in the soil carbon stock of the Tibetan permafrost region. Nature Communications, 10(1), Article 4195. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12214-5

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abstract = "Tibetan permafrost largely formed during the late Pleistocene glacial period and shrank in the Holocene Thermal Maximum period. Quantifying the impacts of paleoclimatic extremes on soil carbon stock can shed light on the vulnerability of permafrost carbon in the future. Here, we synthesize data from 1114 sites across the Tibetan permafrost region to report that paleoclimate is more important than modern climate in shaping current permafrost carbon distribution, and its importance increases with soil depth, mainly through forming the soilʼs physiochemical properties. We derive a new estimate of modern soil carbon stock to 3 m depth by including the paleoclimate effects, and find that the stock (36.6-2.4+2.3 PgC) is triple that predicted by ecosystem models (11.5 ± 4.2 s.e.m PgC), which use pre-industrial climate to initialize the soil carbon pool. The discrepancy highlights the urgent need to incorporate paleoclimate information into model initialization for simulating permafrost soil carbon stocks.",

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The paleoclimatic footprint in the soil carbon stock of the Tibetan permafrost region

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