Dependence of the evolution of carbon dynamics in the northern permafrost region on the trajectory of climate change

Authors: A. David McGuire, David M. Lawrence, Charles D. Koven, J. S. Clein, Eleanor Burke, Guangsheng Chen, Elchin Jafarov, Andrew H. MacDougall, S. S. Marchenko, Dmitry Nicolsky, Shushi Peng, Annette Rinke, Philippe Ciais, Isabelle Gouttevin, Daniel J. Hayes, Duoying Ji, Gerhard Krinner, John C. Moore, V. Romanovsky, Christina Schädel, Kevin Schaefer, Edward A. G. Schuur, Qianlai Zhuang - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, PNAS 2018 cited by 577

-g carbon) loss to 70-Pg C gain. For the RCP8.5 projection, losses in soil carbon varied between 74 and 652 Pg C (mean loss, 341 Pg C). For the RCP4.5 projection, gains in vegetation carbon were largely responsible for the overall projected net gains in ecosystem carbon by 2299 (8- to 244-Pg C gains). In contrast, for the RCP8.5 projection, gains in vegetation carbon were not great enough to compensate for the losses of carbon projected by four of the five models; changes in ecosystem carbon ranged from a 641-Pg C loss to a 167-Pg C gain (mean, 208-Pg C loss). The models indicate that substantial net losses of ecosystem carbon would not occur until after 2100. This assessment suggests that effective mitigation efforts during the remainder of this century could attenuate the negative consequences of the permafrost carbon-climate feedback.