Latitudinal limits to the predicted increase of the peatland carbon sink with warming

Date

2018

Authors

Gallego-Sala, Angela V.
Charman, Dan J.
Brewer, Simon
Page, Susan E.
Prentice, I. Colin
Friedlingstein, Pierre
Moreton, Steve
Lacourse, Terri
et. al.

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Nature Climate Change

Abstract

The carbon sink potential of peatlands depends on the balance of carbon uptake by plants and microbial decomposition. The rates of both these processes will increase with warming but it remains unclear which will dominate the global peatland response. Here we examine the global relationship between peatland carbon accumulation rates during the last millennium and planetary-scale climate space. A positive relationship is found between carbon accumulation and cumulative photosynthetically active radiation during the growing season for mid- to high-latitude peatlands in both hemispheres. However, this relationship reverses at lower latitudes, suggesting that carbon accumulation is lower under the warmest climate regimes. Projections under Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP)2.6 and RCP8.5 scenarios indicate that the present-day global sink will increase slightly until around ad 2100 but decline thereafter. Peatlands will remain a carbon sink in the future, but their response to warming switches from a negative to a positive climate feedback (decreased carbon sink with warming) at the end of the twenty-first century.

Description

Keywords

peatlands, carbon cycle, climate change, tropical peat, last millennium

Citation

Gallego-Sala, A.V., Charman, D.J., Brewer, S., Page, S.E., Prentice, I.C., Friedlingstein, P., … Zhao, Y. (2018). Latitudinal limits to the predicted increase of the peatland carbon sink with warming, Nature Climate Change, 8, 907-913. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0271-1