Methane in Zackenberg Valley, NE Greenland:  multidecadal growing season fluxes of a high-Arctic tundra

Scheller, Johan H.; Mastepanov, Mikhail; Christiansen, Hanne H.; Christensen, Torben R.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-6093-2021

Articles | Volume 18, issue 23

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-6093-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-6093-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 23

Research article

|

29 Nov 2021

Research article |

| 29 Nov 2021

Methane in Zackenberg Valley, NE Greenland: multidecadal growing season fluxes of a high-Arctic tundra

Johan H. Scheller, Mikhail Mastepanov, Hanne H. Christiansen, and Torben R. Christensen

Data sets

GeoBasis Zackenberg – Hydrology – AC_Water_level_automatic Greenland Ecosystem Monitoring https://doi.org/10.17897/MJ7B-Z461

GeoBasis Zackenberg – Hydrology – AC_Water_level_manual Greenland Ecosystem Monitoring https://doi.org/10.17897/6HCP-M521

ClimateBasis Zackenberg – Air temperature – Air temperature, 200 cm @ 60 min sample (°C) Greenland Ecosystem Monitoring https://doi.org/10.17897/XV96-HC57

GeoBasis Zackenberg – Flux monitoring – AC Greenland Ecosystem Monitoring https://doi.org/10.17897/430P-DS31

GeoBasis Zackenberg – Soil properties – Mix-1_Soil_moisture Greenland Ecosystem Monitoring https://doi.org/10.17897/ENNB-T831

GeoBasis Zackenberg – Snow properties – Snow cover (Central area) Greenland Ecosystem Monitoring https://doi.org/10.17897/499C-H459

ClimateBasis Zackenberg – Soil temperature – Soil temperature, 20 cm – 60 min average (°C) Greenland Ecosystem Monitoring https://doi.org/10.17897/XW7C-NA36

Short summary

Our study presents a time series of methane emissions in a high-Arctic-tundra landscape over 14 summers, which shows large variations between years. The methane emissions from the valley are expected to more than double in the late 21st century. This warming increases permafrost thaw, which could increase surface erosion in the valley. Increased erosion could offset some of the rise in methane fluxes from the valley, but this would require large-scale impacts on vegetated surfaces.