Energy and trace-gas fluxes across a soil pH boundary in the Arctic

There is a consistent spatial and temporal pattern of a much greater carbon sink in moist acidic tundra (MAT) than in moist non-acidic tundra (MNT), according to research into the ecosystem properties on either side of a prominent pH boundary within the Kuparuk River basin in Alaska. The wetter, more anaerobic soils of MAT were shown to efflux more than six times the methane of MNT. It is likely that, over century to millennium time scales, zonal soil pH boundaries will move northwards as a result of climate warming, reduction of loess sources and deeper winter snowpacks.