Large historical carbon emissions from cultivated northern peatlands
Qiu, Chunjing (Université Paris-Saclay)
Ciais, Philippe (Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement)
Zhu, Dan (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Guenet, Bertrand (PSL Research University. Laboratoire de Géologie)
Peng, Shushi (Peking University. Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science)
Petrescu, Ana Maria Roxana (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Department of Earth Sciences)
Lauerwald, Ronny (Université Paris-Saclay)
Makowski, David (Université Paris-Saclay)
Gallego Sala, Angela (University of Exeter. Geography Department)
Charman, Dan J. (University of Exeter. Geography Department)
Brewer, Simon C. (University of Utah. Department of Geography)

Date:	2021
Abstract:	When a peatland is drained and cultivated, it behaves as a notable source of CO2. However, we lack temporally and spatially explicit estimates of carbon losses from cultivated peatlands. Using a process-based land surface model that explicitly includes representation of peatland processes, we estimate that northern peatlands con-verted to croplands emitted 72 Pg C over 850-2010, with 45% of this source having occurred before 1750. This source surpassed the carbon accumulation by high-latitude undisturbed peatlands (36 to 47 Pg C). Carbon losses from the cultivation of northern peatlands are omitted in previous land-use emission assessments. Adding this ignored historical land-use emission implies an 18% larger terrestrial carbon storage since 1750 to close the historical global carbon budget. We also show that carbon emission per unit area decrease with time since drainage, suggesting that time since drainage should be accounted for in inventories to refine land-use emissions from cultivated peatlands.
Grants:	European Commission 610028 European Commission 776810
Note:	Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-M
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Published in:	Science advances, Vol. 7, Issue 23 (June 2021) , art. eabf1332, ISSN 2375-2548

DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abf1332
PMID: 34088663

10 p, 1.4 MB

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Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles