1. Whole-soil warming leads to substantial soil carbon emission in an alpine grassland.
- Author
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Chen Y, Qin W, Zhang Q, Wang X, Feng J, Han M, Hou Y, Zhao H, Zhang Z, He JS, Torn MS, and Zhu B
- Abstract
The sensitivity of soil organic carbon (SOC) decomposition in seasonally frozen soils, such as alpine ecosystems, to climate warming is a major uncertainty in global carbon cycling. Here we measure soil CO
2 emission during four years (2018-2021) from the whole-soil warming experiment (4 °C for the top 1 m) in an alpine grassland ecosystem. We find that whole-soil warming stimulates total and SOC-derived CO2 efflux by 26% and 37%, respectively, but has a minor effect on root-derived CO2 efflux. Moreover, experimental warming only promotes total soil CO2 efflux by 7-8% on average in the meta-analysis across all grasslands or alpine grasslands globally (none of these experiments were whole-soil warming). We show that whole-soil warming has a much stronger effect on soil carbon emission in the alpine grassland ecosystem than what was reported in previous warming experiments, most of which only heat surface soils., (© 2024. The Author(s).)- Published
- 2024
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