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Methane (CH4) emissions from the boreal and arctic region are globally significant and highly sensitive to climate change. There is currently a wide range in estimates of high-latitude annual CH4 fluxes, where estimates based on land cover inventories and empirical CH4 flux data or process models (bottom-up approaches) generally are greater than atmospheric inversions (top-down approaches). A limitation of bottom-up approaches has been the lack of harmonization between inventories of site-level CH4 flux data and the land cover classes present in high-latitude spatial datasets. Here we present a comprehensive dataset of small-scale, surface CH4 flux data from 540 terrestrial sites (wetland and non-wetland) and 1247 aquatic sites (lakes and ponds), compiled from 189 studies. The Boreal–Arctic Wetland and Lake Methane Dataset (BAWLD-CH4) was constructed in parallel with a compatible land cover dataset, sharing the same land cover classes to enable refined bottom-up assessments. BAWLD-CH4 includes information on site-level CH4 fluxes but also on study design (measurement method, timing, and frequency) and site characteristics (vegetation, climate, hydrology, soil, and sediment types, permafrost conditions, lake size and depth, and our determination of land cover class). The different land cover classes had distinct CH4 fluxes, resulting from definitions that were either based on or co-varied with key environmental controls. Fluxes of CH4 from terrestrial ecosystems were primarily influenced by water table position, soil temperature, and vegetation composition, while CH4 fluxes from aquatic ecosystems were primarily influenced by water temperature, lake size, and lake genesis. Models could explain more of the between-site variability in CH4 fluxes for terrestrial than aquatic ecosystems, likely due to both less precise assessments of lake CH4 fluxes and fewer consistently reported lake site characteristics. Analysis of BAWLD-CH4 identified both land cover classes and regions within the boreal and arctic domain, where future studies should be focused, alongside methodological approaches. Overall, BAWLD-CH4 provides a comprehensive dataset of CH4 emissions from high-latitude ecosystems that are useful for identifying research opportunities, for comparison against new field data, and model parameterization or validation. BAWLD-CH4 can be downloaded from https://doi.org/10.18739/A2DN3ZX1R (Kuhn et al., 2021).

Aquatic ecosystems are major sources of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Robust measurements of natural GHG emissions are vital for evaluating regional to global carbon budgets and for assessing climate feedbacks of natural emissions to improve climate models. Diffusive and ebullitive (bubble) transport are two major pathways of gas release from surface waters. To capture the high temporal variability of these fluxes in a well-defined footprint, we designed and built an inexpensive device that includes an easily mobile diffusive flux chamber and a bubble counter all in one. In addition to automatically collecting gas samples for subsequent various analyses in the laboratory, this device also utilized a low-cost carbon dioxide (CO2) sensor (SenseAir, Sweden) and methane (CH4) sensor (Figaro, Japan) to measure GHG fluxes. Each of the devices was equipped with an XBee module to enable local radio communication (DigiMesh network) for time synchronization and data readout at a server controller station on the lakeshore. The software of this server controller was operated on a lowcost computer (Raspberry Pi), which has a 3G connection for remote control and monitor functions from anywhere in the world. This study shows the potential of a low-cost automatic sensor network system for studying GHG fluxes on lakes in remote locations. Funding Agencies|US National Science Foundation (NSF) (MacroSystems Biology, EF)National Science Foundation (NSF) [1241937]; US National Science Foundation (NSF) (Northern Ecosystems Research for Undergraduates program, NSF REU site EAR) [1063037]; Swedish Research Council (VR)Swedish Research Council [2012-00048, 2016-04829]; European Research Council (ERC)European Research Council (ERC) [725546]; VINNOVAVinnova [2015-03529]

Lakes and reservoirs contribute to regional carbon budgets via significant emissions of climate forcing trace gases. Here, for improved modelling, we use 8 years of floating chamber measurements from three small, shallow subarctic lakes (2010–2017, n=1306 ) to separate the contribution of physical and biogeochemical processes to the turbulence-driven, diffusion-limited flux of methane ( CH4 ) on daily to multi-year timescales. Correlative data include surface water concentration measurements (2009–2017, n=606 ), total water column storage (2010–2017, n=237 ), and in situ meteorological observations. We used the last to compute near-surface turbulence based on similarity scaling and then applied the surface renewal model to compute gas transfer velocities. Chamber fluxes averaged 6.9±0.3 mg CH4 m −2 d −1 and gas transfer velocities ( k600 ) averaged 4.0±0.1 cm h −1 . Chamber-derived gas transfer velocities tracked the power-law wind speed relation of the model. Coefficients for the model and dissipation rates depended on shear production of turbulence, atmospheric stability, and exposure to wind. Fluxes increased with wind speed until daily average values exceeded 6.5 m s −1 , at which point emissions were suppressed due to rapid water column degassing reducing the water–air concentration gradient. Arrhenius-type temperature functions of the CH4 flux ( E a ′ = 0.90 ± 0.14 eV) were robust ( R2≥0.93 , p ) and also applied to the surface CH4 concentration ( E a ′ = 0.88 ± 0.09 eV). These results imply that emissions were strongly coupled to production and supply to the water column. Spectral analysis indicated that on timescales shorter than a month, emissions were driven by wind shear whereas on longer timescales variations in water temperature governed the flux. Long-term monitoring efforts are essential to identify distinct functional relations that govern flux variability on timescales of weather and climate change.

Characterizing methane sources in the Arctic remains challenging due to the remoteness, heterogeneity and variety of such emissions. In situ campaigns provide valuable datasets to reduce these uncertainties. Here we analyse data from the summer 2014 SWERUS-C3 campaign in the eastern Arctic Ocean, off the shore of Siberia and Alaska. Total concentrations of methane, as well as relative concentrations of 12CH4 and 13CH4, were measured continuously during this campaign for 35 d in July and August. Using a chemistry-transport model, we link observed concentrations and isotopic ratios to regional emissions and hemispheric transport structures. A simple inversion system helped constrain source signatures from wetlands in Siberia and Alaska, and oceanic sources, as well as the isotopic composition of lower-stratosphere air masses. The variation in the signature of lower-stratosphere air masses, due to strongly fractionating chemical reactions in the stratosphere, was suggested to explain a large share of the observed variability in isotopic ratios. These results point towards necessary efforts to better simulate large-scale transport and chemistry patterns to make relevant use of isotopic data in remote areas. It is also found that constant and homogeneous source signatures for each type of emission in a given region (mostly wetlands and oil and gas industry in our case at high latitudes) are not compatible with the strong synoptic isotopic signal observed in the Arctic. A regional gradient in source signatures is highlighted between Siberian and Alaskan wetlands, the latter having lighter signatures (more depleted in 13C). Finally, our results suggest that marine emissions of methane from Arctic continental-shelf sources are dominated by thermogenic-origin methane, with a secondary biogenic source as well.

Permafrost thaw increases active layer thickness, changes landscape hydrology and influences vegetation species composition. These changes alter belowground microbial and geochemical processes, affecting production, consumption and net emission rates of climate forcing trace gases. Net carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) fluxes determine the radiative forcing contribution from these climate-sensitive ecosystems. Permafrost peatlands may be a mosaic of dry frozen hummocks, semi-thawed or perched sphagnum dominated areas, wet permafrost-free sedge dominated sites and open water ponds. We revisited estimates of climate forcing made for 1970 and 2000 for Stordalen Mire in northern Sweden and found the trend of increasing forcing continued into 2014. The Mire continued to transition from dry permafrost to sedge and open water areas, increasing by 100% and 35%, respectively, over the 45-year period, causing the net radiative forcing of Stordalen Mire to shift from negative to positive. This trend is driven by transitioning vegetation community composition, improved estimates of annual CO2 and CH4 exchange and a 22% increase in the IPCC's 100-year global warming potential (GWP_100) value for CH4. These results indicate that discontinuous permafrost ecosystems, while still remaining a net overall sink of C, can become a positive feedback to climate change on decadal timescales. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Rising methane: is warming feeding warming? (part 2)’.

Peatlands are climate critical carbon (C) reservoirs that could become a C source under continued warming. A strong relationship between plant tissue chemistry and the soil organic matter (SOM) that fuels C gas emissions is inferred, but rarely examined at the molecular level. Here we compared Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy measurements of solid phase functionalities in plants and SOM to ultra-high-resolution mass spectrometric analyses of plant and SOM water extracts across a palsa-bog-fen thaw and moisture gradient in an Arctic peatland. From these analyses we calculated the C oxidation state (NOSC), a measure which can be used to assess organic matter quality. Palsa plant extracts had the highest NOSC, indicating high quality, whereas extracts of Sphagnum, which dominated the bog, had the lowest NOSC. The percentage of plant compounds that are less bioavailable and accumulate in the peat, increases from palsa (25%) to fen (41%) to bog (47%), reflecting the pattern of percent Sphagnum cover. The pattern of NOSC in the plant extracts was consistent with the high number of consumed compounds in the palsa and low number of consumed compounds in the bog. However, in the FT-IR analysis of the solid phase bog peat, carbohydrate content was high implying high quality SOM. We explain this discrepancy as the result of low solubilization of bog SOM facilitated by the low pH in the bog which makes the solid phase carbohydrates less available to microbial decomposition. Plant-associated condensed aromatics, tannins, and lignin-like compounds declined in the unsaturated palsa peat indicating decomposition, but lignin-like compounds accumulated in the bog and fen peat where decomposition was presumably inhibited by the anaerobic conditions. A molecular-level comparison of the aboveground C sources and peat SOM demonstrates that climate-associated vegetation shifts in peatlands are important controls on the mechanisms underlying changing C gas emissions.

Northern post-glacial lakes are significant, increasing sources of atmospheric carbon through ebullition (bubbling) of microbially-produced methane (CH4) from sediments. Ebullitive CH4 flux correlates strongly with temperature, reflecting that solar radiation drives emissions. However, here we show that the slope of the temperature-CH4 flux relationship differs spatially across two post-glacial lakes in Sweden. We compared these CH4 emission patterns with sediment microbial (metagenomic and amplicon), isotopic, and geochemical data. The temperature-associated increase in CH4 emissions was greater in lake middles—where methanogens were more abundant—than edges, and sediment communities were distinct between edges and middles. Microbial abundances, including those of CH4-cycling microorganisms and syntrophs, were predictive of porewater CH4 concentrations. Results suggest that deeper lake regions, which currently emit less CH4 than shallower edges, could add substantially to CH4 emissions in a warmer Arctic and that CH4 emission predictions may be improved by accounting for spatial variations in sediment microbiota., Arctic lakes are strong and increasing sources of atmospheric methane, but extreme conditions and limited observations hinder robust understanding. Here the authors show that microbes in the middle of Arctic lakes have elevated methane producing potential, and are poised to release even more in the future.

Warming Arctic temperatures have led to permafrost thaw that threatens to release previously sequestered mercury (Hg) back into the environment. Mobilisation of Hg in permafrost waters is of concer ...

Recent efforts have brought together bottom-up quantification approaches (inventories and process-based models) and top-down approaches using regional observations of methane atmospheric concentrations through inverse modelling to better estimate the northern high-latitude methane sources. Nevertheless, for both approaches, the relatively small number of available observations in northern high-latitude regions leaves gaps in our understanding of the drivers and distributions of the different types of regional methane sources. Observations of methane isotope ratios, performed with instruments that are becoming increasingly affordable and accurate, could bring new insights on the contributions of methane sources and sinks. Here, we present the source signal that could be observed from methane isotopic 13CH4 measurements if high-resolution observations were available and thus what requirements should be fulfilled in future instrument deployments in terms of accuracy in order to constrain different emission categories. This theoretical study uses the regional chemistry-transport model CHIMERE driven by different scenarios of isotopic signatures for each regional methane source mix. It is found that if the current network of methane monitoring sites were equipped with instruments measuring the isotopic signal continuously, only sites that are significantly influenced by emission sources could differentiate regional emissions with a reasonable level of confidence. For example, wetland emissions require daily accuracies lower than 0.2 ‰ for most of the sites. Detecting East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) emissions requires accuracies lower than 0.05 ‰ at coastal Russian sites (even lower for other sites). Freshwater emissions would be detectable with an uncertainty lower than 0.1 ‰ for most continental sites. Except Yakutsk, Siberian sites require stringent uncertainty (lower than 0.05 ‰) to detect anthropogenic emissions from oil and gas or coal production. Remote sites such as Zeppelin, Summit, or Alert require a daily uncertainty below 0.05 ‰ to detect any regional sources. These limits vary with the hypothesis on isotopic signatures assigned to the different sources.

Arctic regions are experiencing rapid warming, leading to permafrost thaw and formation of numerous water bodies. Although small ponds in particular are considered hot spots for methane (CH4) relea ...

Northern lakes are important sources of the climate forcing trace gases methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2). A substantial portion of lakes' annual emissions can take place immediately after ice melt in spring. The drivers of these fluxes are neither well constrained nor fully understood. We present a detailed carbon gas budget for three subarctic lakes, using 6 years of eddy covariance and 9 years of manual flux measurements. We combine measurements of temperature, dissolved oxygen, and CH4 stable isotopologues to quantify functional relationships between carbon gas production and conversion, energy inputs, and the redox regime. Spring emissions were regulated by the availability of oxygen in winter, rather than temperature as during ice‐free conditions. Under‐ice storage increased predictably with ice‐cover duration, and CH4 accumulation rates (25 ± 2 mg CH4‐C·m−2·day−1) exceeded summer emissions (19 ± 1 mg CH4‐C·m−2·day−1). The seasonally ice‐covered lakes emitted 26–59% of the annual CH4 flux and 15–30% of the annual CO2 flux at ice‐off. Reduced spring emissions were associated with winter snowmelt events, which can transport water downstream and oxygenate the water column. Stable isotopes indicate that 64–96% of accumulated CH4 escaped oxidation, implying that a considerable portion of the dissolved gases produced over winter may evade to the atmosphere.

Purpose of Review The Arctic has experienced the most rapid change in climate of anywhere on Earth, and these changes are certain to drive changes in the carbon budget of the Arctic as vegetation changes, soils warm, fires become more frequent, and wetlands evolve as permafrost thaws. In this study, we review the extensive evidence for Arctic climate change and effects on the carbon cycle. In addition, we re-evaluate some of the observational evidence for changing Arctic carbon budgets. Recent Findings Observations suggest a more active CO2 cycle in high northern latitude ecosystems. Evidence points to increased uptake by boreal forests and Arctic ecosystems, as well as increasing respiration, especially in autumn. However, there is currently no strong evidence of increased CH4 emissions. Summary Long-term observations using both bottom-up (e.g., flux) and top-down (atmospheric abundance) approaches are essential for understanding changing carbon cycle budgets. Consideration of atmospheric transport is critical for interpretation of top-down observations of atmospheric carbon.

Globally, soils store two to three times as much carbon as currently resides in the atmosphere, and it is critical to understand how soil greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and uptake will respond to ongoing climate change. In particular, the soil‐to‐atmosphere CO2 flux, commonly though imprecisely termed soil respiration (R S), is one of the largest carbon fluxes in the Earth system. An increasing number of high‐frequency R S measurements (typically, from an automated system with hourly sampling) have been made over the last two decades; an increasing number of methane measurements are being made with such systems as well. Such high frequency data are an invaluable resource for understanding GHG fluxes, but lack a central database or repository. Here we describe the lightweight, open‐source COSORE (COntinuous SOil REspiration) database and software, that focuses on automated, continuous and long‐term GHG flux datasets, and is intended to serve as a community resource for earth sciences, climate change syntheses and model evaluation. Contributed datasets are mapped to a single, consistent standard, with metadata on contributors, geographic location, measurement conditions and ancillary data. The design emphasizes the importance of reproducibility, scientific transparency and open access to data. While being oriented towards continuously measured R S, the database design accommodates other soil‐atmosphere measurements (e.g. ecosystem respiration, chamber‐measured net ecosystem exchange, methane fluxes) as well as experimental treatments (heterotrophic only, etc.). We give brief examples of the types of analyses possible using this new community resource and describe its accompanying R software package., Here we describe the lightweight, open source COSORE (COntinuous SOil REspiration) database and software. COSORE focuses on automated, continuous and long‐term greenhouse gas flux datasets, and is intended to serve as a community resource for earth sciences, climate change syntheses and model evaluation.

Methane (CH4) emissions from wetlands are likely increasing and important in global climate change assessments. However, contemporary terrestrial biogeochemical model predictions of CH4 emissions are very uncertain, at least in part due to prescribed temperature sensitivity of CH4 production and emission. While statistically consistent apparent CH4 emission temperature dependencies have been inferred from meta-analyses across microbial to ecosystem scales, year-round ecosystem-scale observations have contradicted that finding. Using flux observations and mechanistic modeling in two heavily studied high-latitude research sites (Stordalen, Sweden, and Utqiaġvik, Alaska, USA), we show here that substrate-mediated hysteretic microbial and abiotic interactions lead to intra-seasonally varying temperature sensitivity of CH4 production and emission. We find that seasonally varying substrate availability drives lower and higher modeled methanogen biomass and activity, and thereby CH4 production, during the earlier and later periods of the thawed season, respectively. Our findings demonstrate the uncertainty of inferring CH4 emission or production from temperature alone, and highlight the need to represent microbial and abiotic interactions in wetland biogeochemical models.

We present the Net Ecosystem Carbon Balance (NECB) of a Northern mire ecosystem for the period 2016-2019. The Mycklemossen peatland is located in the hemi-boreal region in the Southwestern part of Sweden and is classified as a fen with bog-like vegetation. The NECB was determined from eddy covariance (EC) measurements of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) and continuous water discharge measurements with biweekly measurements of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and dissolved CH4. We focus on the carbon dynamics of the Mycklemossen ecosystem during summer droughts and on its recovery during normal years. During 2016-2018, the annual precipitation was lower than the 30-year average while 2019 was a normal year in terms of weather conditions. 2018 sticks out as an extreme year with a severe drought and unusually high air temperature at Mycklemossen, as was the case in much of Northern and Central Europe.The EC results indicate that Mycklemossen lost carbon during 2016-2018. While CH4 emissions decreased, the mire became a strong source of CO2 these years, especially 2018. There were also large losses of DOC during this period, which were further enhanced during 2019.

The release of long‐stored carbon from thawed permafrost could fuel increased methanogenesis in northern lakes, but it remains unclear whether old carbon substrates released from permafrost are metabolized as rapidly by methanogenic microbial communities as recently produced organic carbon. Here, we apply methane (CH₄) clumped isotope (Δ₁₈) and ¹⁴C measurements to test whether rates of methanogenesis are related to carbon substrate age. Results from culture experiments indicate that Δ₁₈ values are negatively correlated with CH₄ production rate. Measurements of ebullition samples from thermokarst lakes in Alaska and glacial lakes in Sweden indicate strong negative correlations between CH₄ Δ₁₈ and the fraction modern carbon. These correlations imply that CH₄ derived from older carbon substrates is produced relatively slowly. Relative rates of methanogenesis, as inferred from Δ₁₈ values, are not positively correlated with CH₄ flux estimates, highlighting the likely importance of environmental variables other than CH₄ production rates in controlling ebullition fluxes.

Northern post-glacial lakes are a significant and increasing source of atmospheric carbon (C), largely through ebullition (bubbling) of microbially-produced methane (CH4) from the sediments1. Ebullitive CH4 flux correlates strongly with temperature, suggesting that solar radiation is the primary driver of these CH4 emissions2. However, here we show that the slope of the temperature-CH4 flux relationship differs spatially, both within and among lakes.Hypothesizing that differences in microbiota could explain this heterogeneity, we compared site-specific CH4 emissions with underlying sediment microbial (metagenomic and amplicon), isotopic, and geochemical data across two post-glacial lakes in Northern Sweden. The temperature-associated increase in CH4 emissions was greater in lake middles—where methanogens were more abundant—than edges, and sediment microbial communities were distinct between lake edges and middles. Although CH4 emissions projections are typically driven by abiotic factors1, regression modeling revealed that microbial abundances, including those of CH4-cycling microorganisms and syntrophs that generate H2 for methanogenesis, can be useful predictors of porewater CH4 concentrations. Our results suggest that deeper lake regions, which currently emit less CH4 than shallower edges, could add substantially to overall CH4 emissions in a warmer Arctic with longer ice-free seasons and that future CH4 emission predictions from northern lakes may be improved by accounting for spatial variations in sediment microbiota.

Ebullition (bubbling) from climate-sensitive northern lakes remains an unconstrained source of atmospheric methane (CH4). Although the focus of many recent studies, ebullition is rarely linked to t ...

As global temperatures rise, large amounts of carbon sequestered in permafrost are becoming available for microbial degradation. Accurate prediction of carbon gas emissions from thawing permafrost is limited by our understanding of these microbial communities. Here we use metagenomic sequencing of 214 samples from a permafrost thaw gradient to recover 1,529 metagenome-assembled genomes, including many from phyla with poor genomic representation. These genomes reflect the diversity of this complex ecosystem, with genus-level representatives for more than sixty per cent of the community. Meta-omic analysis revealed key populations involved in the degradation of organic matter, including bacteria whose genomes encode a previously undescribed fungal pathway for xylose degradation. Microbial and geochemical data highlight lineages that correlate with the production of greenhouse gases and indicate novel syntrophic relationships. Our findings link changing biogeochemistry to specific microbial lineages involved in carbon processing, and provide key information for predicting the effects of climate change on permafrost systems.

Climate change threatens to release abundant carbon that is sequestered at high latitudes, but the constraints on microbial metabolisms that mediate the release of methane and carbon dioxide are poorly understood1–7. The role of viruses, which are known to affect microbial dynamics, metabolism and biogeochemistry in the oceans8–10, remains largely unexplored in soil. Here, we aimed to investigate how viruses influence microbial ecology and carbon metabolism in peatland soils along a permafrost thaw gradient in Sweden. We recovered 1,907 viral populations (genomes and large genome fragments) from 197 bulk soil and size-fractionated metagenomes, 58% of which were detected in metatranscriptomes and presumed to be active. In silico predictions linked 35% of the viruses to microbial host populations, highlighting likely viral predators of key carbon-cycling microorganisms, including methanogens and methanotrophs. Lineage-specific virus/host ratios varied, suggesting that viral infection dynamics may differentially impact microbial responses to a changing climate. Virus-encoded glycoside hydrolases, including an endomannanase with confirmed functional activity, indicated that viruses influence complex carbon degradation and that viral abundances were significant predictors of methane dynamics. These findings suggest that viruses may impact ecosystem function in climate-critical, terrestrial habitats and identify multiple potential viral contributions to soil carbon cycling., The recovery of viral populations from peatland soils across a permafrost thaw gradient provides insights into soil viral diversity, their hosts and the potential impacts on carbon cycling in this environment.

The fate of carbon sequestered in permafrost is a key concern for future global warming as this large carbon stock is rapidly becoming a net methane source due to widespread thaw. Methane release from permafrost is moderated by methanotrophs, which oxidise 20–60% of this methane before emission to the atmosphere. Despite the importance of methanotrophs to carbon cycling, these microorganisms are under-characterised and have not been studied across a natural permafrost thaw gradient. Here, we examine methanotroph communities from the active layer of a permafrost thaw gradient in Stordalen Mire (Abisko, Sweden) spanning three years, analysing 188 metagenomes and 24 metatranscriptomes paired with in situ biogeochemical data. Methanotroph community composition and activity varied significantly as thaw progressed from intact permafrost palsa, to partially thawed bog and fully thawed fen. Thirteen methanotroph population genomes were recovered, including two novel genomes belonging to the uncultivated upland soil cluster alpha (USCα) group and a novel potentially methanotrophic Hyphomicrobiaceae. Combined analysis of porewater δ13C-CH4 isotopes and methanotroph abundances showed methane oxidation was greatest below the oxic–anoxic interface in the bog. These results detail the direct effect of thaw on autochthonous methanotroph communities, and their consequent changes in population structure, activity and methane moderation potential.

The net ecosystem CO2 exchange (NEE) drives the carbon (C) sink-source strength of northern peatlands. Since NEE represents a balance between various production and respiration fluxes, accurate predictions of its response to global changes require an in depth understanding of these underlying processes. Currently, however, detailed information of the temporal dynamics as well as the separate biotic and abiotic controls of the NEE component fluxes is lacking in peatland ecosystems. In this study, we address this knowledge gap by using an automated chamber system established across natural and trenching/vegetation removal plots to partition NEE into its production (i.e., gross and net primary production; GPP and NPP) and respiration (i.e., ecosystem, heterotrophic and autotrophic respiration; ER, Rh and Ra) fluxes in a boreal peatland in northern Sweden. Our results showed that daily NEE patterns were driven by GPP while variations in ER were governed by Ra rather than Rh. Moreover, we observed pronounced seasonal shifts in the Ra/Rh and above/belowground NPP ratios throughout the main phenological phases. Generalized linear model analysis revealed that the greenness index derived from digital images (as a proxy for plant phenology) was the strongest control of NEE, GPP and NPP while explaining considerable fractions also in the variations of ER and Ra. In addition, our data exposed greater temperature sensitivity of NPP compared to Rh resulting in enhanced C sequestration with increasing temperature. Overall, our study suggests that the temporal patterns in NEE and its component fluxes are tightly coupled to vegetation dynamics in boreal peatlands and thus challenges previous studies that commonly identify abiotic factors as key drivers. These findings further emphasize the need for integrating detailed information on plant phenology into process-based models to improve predictions of global change impacts on the peatland C cycle.

Lakes and wetlands, common ecosystems of the high northern latitudes, exchange large amounts of the climate-forcing gases methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) with the atmosphere. The magnitude of these fluxes and the processes driving them are still uncertain, particularly for subarctic and Arctic lakes where direct measurements of CH4 and CO2 emissions are often of low temporal resolution and are rarely sustained throughout the entire year. Using the eddy covariance method, we measured surface-atmosphere exchange of CH4 and CO2 during 2.5 years in a thawed fen and a shallow lake of a subarctic peatland complex. Gas exchange at the fen exhibited the expected seasonality of a subarctic wetland with maximum CH4 emissions and CO2 uptake in summer, as well as low but continuous emissions of CH4 and CO2 throughout the snow-covered winter. The seasonality of lake fluxes differed, with maximum CO2 and CH4 flux rates recorded at spring thaw. During the ice-free seasons, we could identify surface CH4 emissions as mostly ebullition events with a seasonal trend in the magnitude of the release, while a net CO2 flux indicated photosynthetic activity. We found correlations between surface CH4 emissions and surface sediment temperature, as well as between diel CO2 uptake and diel solar input. At ice-out, the breakdown of thermal stratification following ice thaw triggered the degassing of both CH4 and CO2. This spring burst was observed in two consecutive years for both gases, with a large inter-annual variability in the magnitude of the CH4 degassing. On the annual scale, spring emissions converted the lake from a small CO2 sink to a CO2 source. 80 % of total annual carbon emissions from the lake were emitted as CO2. The annual total carbon exchange per unit area was highest at the fen, which was an annual sink of carbon with respect to the atmosphere. Continuous respiration during the winter partly counteracted the fen summer sink by accounting for, as both CH4 and CO2, 33 % of annual carbon exchange. Our study underlines (1) the importance of overturn periods (spring or fall) for the annual CH4 and CO2 emissions of northern lakes, (2) the significance of lakes as atmospheric carbon sources in subarctic landscapes while fens can be strong carbon sink and (3) the potential for ecosystem-scale eddy covariance measurements to improve the understanding of short-term processes driving lake-atmosphere exchange of CH4 and CO2.

Once inorganic electron acceptors are depleted, organic matter in anoxic environments decomposes by hydrolysis, fermentation, and methanogenesis, requiring syntrophic interactions between microorganisms to achieve energetic favorability. In this classic anaerobic food chain, methanogenesis represents the terminal electron accepting (TEA) process, ultimately producing equimolar CO 2 and CH 4 for each molecule of organic matter degraded. However, CO 2 :CH 4 production in Sphagnum- derived, mineral-poor, cellulosic peat often substantially exceeds this 1:1 ratio, even in the absence of measureable inorganic TEAs. Since the oxidation state of C in both cellulose-derived organic matter and acetate is 0, and CO 2 has an oxidation state of +4, if CH 4 (oxidation state −4) is not produced in equal ratio, then some other compound(s) must balance CO 2 production by receiving 4 electrons. Here we present evidence for ubiquitous hydrogenation of diverse unsaturated compounds that appear to serve as organic TEAs in peat, thereby providing the necessary electron balance to sustain CO 2 :CH 4 > 1. While organic electron acceptors have previously been proposed to drive microbial respiration of organic matter through the reversible reduction of quinone moieties, the hydrogenation mechanism that we propose, by contrast, reduces C C double bonds in organic matter thereby serving as (1) a terminal electron sink, (2) a mechanism for degrading complex unsaturated organic molecules, (3) a potential mechanism to regenerate electron-accepting quinones, and, in some cases, (4) a means to alleviate the toxicity of unsaturated aromatic acids. This mechanism for CO 2 generation without concomitant CH 4 production has the potential to regulate the global warming potential of peatlands by elevating CO 2 :CH 4 production ratios.

U.S. Department of Energy [DE-SC0004632, DE-SC0010580]; U.S. National Science Foundation (MacroSystems Biology) [1241937]; Northern Ecosystems Research for undergraduates REU Site (NSF EAR) [1063037]; Vetenskapradet (DR) [2007-4547, 2013-5562]

Modern microbial and ecosystem sciences require diverse interdisciplinary teams that are often challenged in “speaking” to one another due to different languages and data product types. Here we introduce the IsoGenie Database (IsoGenieDB; https://isogenie-db.asc.ohio-state.edu/), a de novo developed data management and exploration platform, as a solution to this challenge of accurately representing and integrating heterogenous environmental and microbial data across ecosystem scales. The IsoGenieDB is a public and private data infrastructure designed to store and query data generated by the IsoGenie Project, a ~10 year DOE-funded project focused on discovering ecosystem climate feedbacks in a thawing permafrost landscape. The IsoGenieDB provides (i) a platform for IsoGenie Project members to explore the project’s interdisciplinary datasets across scales through the inherent relationships among data entities, (ii) a framework to consolidate and harmonize the datasets needed by the team’s modelers, and (iii) a public venue that leverages the same spatially explicit, disciplinarily integrated data structure to share published datasets. The IsoGenieDB is also being expanded to cover the NASA-funded Archaea to Atmosphere (A2A) project, which scales the findings of IsoGenie to a broader suite of Arctic peatlands, via the umbrella A2A Database (A2A-DB). The IsoGenieDB’s expandability and flexible architecture allow it to serve as an example ecosystems database.

Recent warming in the Arctic, which has been amplified during the winter1–3, 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 estimates5,6. 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. Winter warming in the Arctic will increase the CO2 flux from soils. A pan-Arctic analysis shows a current loss of 1,662 TgC per year over the winter, exceeding estimated carbon uptake in the growing season; projections suggest a 17% increase under RCP 4.5 and a 41% increase under RCP 8.5 by 2100.

Author(s): Chang, KY; Riley, WJ; Brodie, EL; McCalley, CK; Crill, PM; Grant, RF | Abstract: Projected 21st century changes in high-latitude climate are expected to have significant impacts on permafrost thaw, which could cause substantial increases in emissions to the atmosphere of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4, which has a global warming potential 28 times larger than CO2 over a 100-year horizon). However, predicted CH4 emission rates are very uncertain due to difficulties in modeling complex interactions among hydrological, thermal, biogeochemical, and plant processes. Methanogenic production pathways (i.e., acetoclastic [AM] and hydrogenotrophic [HM]) and the magnitude of CH4 emissions may both change as permafrost thaws, but a mechanistic analysis of controls on such shifts in CH4 dynamics is lacking. In this study, we reproduced observed shifts in CH4 emissions and production pathways with a comprehensive biogeochemical model (ecosys) at the Stordalen Mire in subarctic Sweden. Our results demonstrate that soil temperature changes differently affect AM and HM substrate availability, which regulates magnitudes of AM, HM, and thereby net CH4 emissions. We predict very large landscape-scale, vertical, and temporal variations in the modeled HM fraction, highlighting that measurement strategies for metrics that compare CH4 production pathways could benefit from model informed scale of temporal and spatial variance. Finally, our findings suggest that the warming and wetting trends projected in northern peatlands could enhance peatland AM fraction and CH4 emissions even without further permafrost degradation.

The spatial extent of northern peatlands remains highly uncertain in spite of rapidly developing satellite observation datasets. This is limiting progress in the understanding of fundamental biogeochemical processes, such as the global carbon (C) cycle and climate feedback effects on C fluxes. In this study, we evaluated the capabilities of two new satellite datasets that enable regional scale mapping of peatland extent at high spatial resolution, including Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and the Arctic digital elevation model (ArcticDEM). Terrain indices and temporal features derived from these datasets provided input to Random Forest models for delineating four main land cover classes (forest, open upland, water and peatland) in an area in northern Sweden consisting of both lowland and mountainous terrain. The contribution of ArcticDEM to the classification accuracy was assessed by comparing the results with those derived when a high quality LiDAR based DEM (LiDEM) was used as alternative model input. This study shows that multi-seasonal SAR alone can produce reasonable classification results in terms of overall accuracy (OA; 81.6%), but also that it has limitations. The inclusion of terrain indices improved classification performance substantially. OA increased to 87.5% and 90.9% when terrain indices derived from ArcticDEM and LiDEM were included, respectively. The largest increase in accuracy was achieved for the peatland class, which suggests that terrain indices do have the ability to capture the features in the geographic context that aid the discrimination of peatland from other land cover classes. The relatively small difference in classification accuracy between LiDEM and ArcticDEM is encouraging since the latter provides circumpolar coverage. Thus, the combination of Sentinel-1 time series and terrain indices derived from ArcticDEM presents opportunities for substantially improving regional estimates of peatland extent at high latitudes. Funding Agencies|Swedish Research Council VRSwedish Research Council [VR 2012-48]; IZOMET project [VR 2014-6584]; Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development (Formas)Swedish Research Council Formas [2018-00570, 2018-01794]

The recent paper in Geosciences, “Understanding the Permafrost−Hydrate System and Associated Methane Releases in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf” by Shakhova, Semiletov, and Chuvilin, (henceforth “S2019”), contains a number of false statements about our 2016 paper, “Methane fluxes from the sea to the atmosphere across the Siberian shelf seas”, (henceforth “T2016”). S2019 use three paragraphs of section 5 of their paper to claim methodological errors and issues in T2016. Notably they claim that in T2016, we systematically removed data outliers including data with high methane concentrations; this claim is false. While we appreciate that flawed methodologies can be a problem in any area of science, in this case, the claims made in S2019 are simply false. In this comment, we detail the incorrect claims made in S2019 regarding T2016, and then discuss some additional problematic aspects of S2019.

Lakes and reservoirs are important emitters of climate forcing trace gases. Various environmental drivers of the flux, such as temperature and wind speed, have been identified, but their relative importance remains poorly understood. Here we use an extensive field dataset to disentangle physical and biogeochemical controls on the turbulence-driven diffusive flux of methane (CH4) on daily to multi-year timescales. We compare 8 years of floating chamber fluxes from three small, shallow subarctic lakes (2010–2017, n = 1306) with fluxes computed using 9 years of surface water concentration measurements (2009–2017, n = 606) and a small-eddy surface renewal model informed by in situ meteorological observations. Chamber fluxes averaged 6.9 ± 0.3 mg m−2 d−1 and gas transfer velocities (k600) from the chamber-calibrated surface renewal model averaged 4.0 ± 0.1 cm h−1. We find robust (R2 ≥ 0.93, p

Aquatic ecosystems are major sources of greenhouse gases (GHG). Robust measurements of natural GHG emissions are vital for evaluating regional to global carbon budgets and for assessing climate feedbacks on natural emissions to improve climate models. Diffusive and ebullitive (bubble) transport are two major pathways of gas release from surface waters. To capture the high temporal variability of these fluxes in a well-defined footprint, we designed and built an inexpensive device that includes an easily mobile diffusive flux chamber and a bubble counter, all in one. In addition to automatically collecting gas samples for subsequent various analyses in the laboratory, this device also utilizes a low cost carbon dioxide (CO2) sensor (SenseAir, Sweden) and methane (CH4) sensor (Figaro, Japan) to measure GHG fluxes. Each of the devices were equipped with an XBee module to enable a local radio communication (DigiMesh network) for time synchronization, and data readout at a server-controller station on the lakeshore. Software of this server-controller is operated on a low-cost computer (Raspberry Pi) which has a 3G connection for remote control and monitor functions from anywhere in the world. This study shows the potential of a low cost automatic sensor network system to study GHG fluxes on lakes in remote locations.

Our objective in this project was to discover how microbial communities mediate the fate of carbon in thawing permafrost under climate change. We proposed a systems approach integrating (a) molecul ...

Permafrost peatlands store large amounts of carbon potentially vulnerable to decomposition. However, the fate of that carbon in a changing climate remains uncertain in models due to complex interactions among hydrological, biogeochemical, microbial, and plant processes. In this study, we estimated effects of climate forcing biases present in global climate reanalysis products on carbon cycle predictions at a thawing permafrost peatland in subarctic Sweden. The analysis was conducted with a comprehensive biogeochemical model (ecosys) across a permafrost thaw gradient encompassing intact permafrost palsa with an ice core and a shallow active layer, partly thawed bog with a deeper active layer and a variable water table, and fen with a water table close to the surface, each with distinct vegetation and microbiota. Using in situ observations to correct local cold and wet biases found in the Global Soil Wetness Project Phase 3 (GSWP3) climate reanalysis forcing, we demonstrate good model performance by comparing predicted and observed carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) exchanges, thaw depth, and water table depth. The simulations driven by the bias-corrected climate suggest that the three peatland types currently accumulate carbon from the atmosphere, although the bog and fen sites can have annual positive radiative forcing impacts due to their higher CH4 emissions. Our simulations indicate that projected precipitation increases could accelerate CH4 emissions from the palsa area, even without further degradation of palsa permafrost. The GSWP3 cold and wet biases for this site significantly alter simulation results and lead to erroneous active layer depth (ALD) and carbon budget estimates. Biases in simulated CO2 and CH4 exchanges from biased climate forcing are as large as those among the thaw stages themselves at a landscape scale across the examined permafrost thaw gradient. Future studies should thus not only focus on changes in carbon budget associated with morphological changes in thawing permafrost, but also recognize the effects of climate forcing uncertainty on carbon cycling.

The fate of carbon stored in permafrost-zone peatlands represents a significant uncertainty in global climate modeling. Given that the breakdown of dissolved organic matter (DOM) is often a major p ...

The Laptev and East Siberian Seas have been proposed as a substantial source of methane (CH4) to the atmosphere. During summer 2014, we made unique high-resolution simultaneous measurements of CH4 ...

Sediments deposited along continental margins of the Arctic Ocean presumably host large amounts of methane (CH4) in gas hydrates. Here we apply numerical simulations to assess the potential of gas ...