Wetland succession in a permafrost collapse

Wetland succession in a permafrost collapse: interactions between fire and thermokarst

1 Institute of Arctic Biology, 311 Irving I Bldg., University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, 99775, USA 2 US Geological Survey, 345 Middlefield Rd. MS 962, Menlo Park, California, 94025, USA 3 Institute for Botany and Landscape Ecology, Grimmer Strasse 88, Greifswald University, 17487, Greifswald, Germany 4 U.S. Geological Survey, Alaska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, Uni...

Role of Megafauna and Frozen Soil in the Atmospheric CH4 Dynamics

Modern wetlands are the world's strongest methane source. But what was the role of this source in the past? An analysis of global 14C data for basal peat combined with modelling of wetland succession allowed us to reconstruct the dynamics of global wetland methane emission through time. These data show that the rise of atmospheric methane concentrations during the Pleistocene-Holocene transitio...

Using stable isotopes to assess surface water source dynamics and hydrological connectivity in a high-latitude wetland and permafrost influenced landscape

Differential response of carbon fluxes to climate in three peatland ecosystems that vary in the presence and stability of permafrost

Changes in vegetation and soil properties following permafrost degradation and thermokarst development in peatlands may cause changes in net carbon storage. To better understand these dynamics, we established three sites in Alaska that vary in permafrost regime, including a black spruce peat plateau forest with stable permafrost, an internal collapse scar bog formed as a result of thermokarst, ...

A comparison of methane flux in a boreal landscape between a dry and a wet year

[1] We used field measurements of methane (CH4) flux from upland and wetland soils in the Northern Study Area (NSA) of BOREAS (BOReal Ecosystem-Atmosphere Study), near Thompson, Manitoba, during the summers of 1994 and 1996 to estimate the overall CH4 emission from a 1350 km 2 landscape. June–September 1994 and 1996 were both drier and warmer than normal, but summer 1996 received 68 mm more pre...