Alexandrov G A, Brovkin V A, Kleinen T
A. M. Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pyzhevsky 3, Moscow, 119017, Russia.
Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Bundesstrasse 53, 20146 Hamburg, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2016 Apr 20;6:24784. doi: 10.1038/srep24784.
Boreal and subarctic peatlands are an important dynamical component of the earth system. They are sensitive to climate change, and could either continue to serve as a carbon sink or become a carbon source. Climatic thresholds for switching peatlands from sink to source are not well defined, and therefore, incorporating peatlands into Earth system models is a challenging task. Here we introduce a climatic index, warm precipitation excess, to delineate the potential geographic distribution of boreal peatlands for a given climate and landscape morphology. This allows us to explain the present-day distribution of peatlands in Western Siberia, their absence during the Last Glacial Maximum, their expansion during the mid-Holocene, and to form a working hypothesis about the trend to peatland degradation in the southern taiga belt of Western Siberia under an RCP 8.5 scenario for the projected climate in year 2100.
北方和亚北极泥炭地是地球系统的一个重要动态组成部分。它们对气候变化敏感，既可能继续充当碳汇，也可能成为碳源。泥炭地从碳汇转变为碳源的气候阈值尚不明确，因此，将泥炭地纳入地球系统模型是一项具有挑战性的任务。在此，我们引入一个气候指数——暖季降水盈余，来描绘在给定气候和地貌形态下北方泥炭地的潜在地理分布。这使我们能够解释西西伯利亚泥炭地的现今分布情况、末次盛冰期时它们的缺失、全新世中期的扩张，并就2100年预测气候情景下西西伯利亚南部泰加林带泥炭地退化趋势形成一个可行的假设。
