Massive losses and gains of northern land carbon stocks since the Last Glacial Maximum.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 40880482.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/sciadv.adt6231 and PMC identifier 12396326.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
The dynamics of atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> concentrations during and following the last deglaciation have mainly been ascribed to carbon release from and uptake in oceans, primarily in the Southern Ocean. But recent studies also point toward a terrestrial influence. We quantify dynamic changes to northern terrestrial carbon stocks from the Last Glacial Maximum (21,000 years) until present at millennial time steps using a combination of paleo-data and climate-biome modeling. During the deglaciation, northern land carbon storage declined by >300 petagrams of carbon with a minimum around 11,000 years, followed by progressively higher land carbon stocks during the Holocene. We find evidence that dynamic changes in terrestrial land carbon stocks were of a scale to exert large influence on atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> concentrations and that postglacial terrestrial carbon stock dynamics were dominated by losses from permafrost-affected loess and gains into peatlands.