Ideas and perspectives: Holocene thermokarst sediments of the Yedoma  permafrost region do not increase the northern  peatland carbon pool

Hugelius, Gustaf; Kuhry, Peter; Tarnocai, Charles

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-2003-2016

Articles | Volume 13, issue 7

Biogeosciences, 13, 2003–2010, 2016

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-2003-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Biogeosciences, 13, 2003–2010, 2016

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-2003-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 13, issue 7

Ideas and perspectives 06 Apr 2016

Ideas and perspectives | 06 Apr 2016

Ideas and perspectives: Holocene thermokarst sediments of the Yedoma permafrost region do not increase the northern peatland carbon pool

Gustaf Hugelius et al.

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-2003-2016-supplement

Data sets

Global Land Cover Map for 2009 (GlobCover 2009) Arino, O., Ramos Perez, J. J., Kalogirou, V., Bontemps, S., Defourny, P., and Van Bogaert, E. https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.787668

A new data set for estimating organic carbon storage to 3 m depth in soils of the northern circumpolar permafrost region Hugelius, G., Bockheim, J. G., Camill, P., Elberling, B., Grosse, G., Harden, J. W., Johnson, K., Jorgenson, T., Koven, C. D., Kuhry, P., Michaelson, G., Mishra, U., Palmtag, J., Ping, C.-L., O'Donnell, J., Schirrmeister, L., Schuur, E. A. G., Sheng, Y., Smith, L. C., Strauss, J., and Yu, Z.: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-5-393-2013

The Northern Circumpolar Soil Carbon Database Hugelius, G., Tarnocai, C., Broll, G., Canadell, J. G., Kuhry, P., and Swanson, D. K. https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-5-3-2013

Global Land Cover 2000, Eurasia Bartalev, S., Erchov, D., Isaev, A., and Belward, A. http://forobs.jrc.ec.europa.eu/products/glc2000/products.php

Global Lakes and Wetlands Database Lehner, B. and Döll, P. http://www.worldwildlife.org/pages/global-lakes-and-wetlands-database

Land Resources of Russia Stolbovoi, V. and McCallum, I. http://webarchive.iiasa.ac.at/Research/FOR/russia_cd/download.htm

Short summary

We investigate the properties of soils and sediments in a particular and ancient Siberian permafrost landscape. We critically examine statements from a recent study that specific permafrost landforms affected by thawed permafrost (alases) in this region contain very large quantities of peat that previous studies had failed to include because of data set biases. We conclude that there is no evidence to suggest biases in existing data sets or that alas deposits increase the northern peatland pool.