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Initially skeptical about methane emissions from dryland ecosystems, a research team discovered that these areas release unexpectedly high levels of methane, particularly in winter. Their findings challenge current climate models and suggest a significant acceleration in global warming due to permafrost thaw.
The study’s research team samples soil cores at a site near Fairbanks, Alaska, in winter. Credit: Photo by Katey Walter Anthonythis July, reported that upland landscapes were releasing some of the highest methane emissions yet documented among northern terrestrial ecosystems. Even more, the methane consisted of carbon thousands of years older than what researchers had previously seen from upland environments.
She and colleagues identified 25 additional sites across Alaska’s dry upland forests, grasslands, and tundra and measured methane flux at over 1,200 locations year-round across three years. The sites encompassed areas with high silt and ice content in their soils and signs of permafrost thaw known as thermokarst mounds, where thawing ground ice causes some parts of the land to sink. This leaves behind an “egg carton” like pattern of conical hills and sunken trenches.
The research team emphasized that methane emissions are especially high for sites with Pleistocene-era Yedoma deposits. These soils contain large stocks of carbon that extend tens of meters below the ground surface. Walter Anthony suspects that their high silt content prevents oxygen from reaching deeply thawed soils in taliks, which in turn favors microbes that produce methane.
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