Tradeoff of CO2 and CH4 emissions from global peatlands under water-table drawdown

Water-table drawdown across peatlands increases carbon dioxide (CO2) and reduces methane (CH4) emissions. The net climatic effect remains unclear. Based on global observations from 130 sites, we found a positive (warming) net climate effect of water-table drawdown. Using a machine-learning-based ups...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature climate change 2021-07, Vol.11 (7), p.618-622
Main Authors: Huang, Yuanyuan, Ciais, Phillipe, Luo, Yiqi, Zhu, Dan, Wang, Yingping, Qiu, Chunjing, Goll, Daniel S., Guenet, Bertrand, Makowski, David, De Graaf, Inge, Leifeld, Jens, Kwon, Min Jung, Hu, Jing, Qu, Laiye
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide emissions
Climate
Climate and human activity
Climate change
Climate effects
Deceleration
Drawdown
Drying
Emissions
Environmental Sciences
Global Changes
Global warming
Greenhouse effect
Greenhouse gases
Human influences
Learning algorithms
Machine learning
Mathematics
Methane
Methane emissions
Peatlands
Positive feedback
Statistics
Water
Water depth
Water table
Water table depth
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Summary:Water-table drawdown across peatlands increases carbon dioxide (CO2) and reduces methane (CH4) emissions. The net climatic effect remains unclear. Based on global observations from 130 sites, we found a positive (warming) net climate effect of water-table drawdown. Using a machine-learning-based upscaling approach, we predict that peatland water-table drawdown driven by climate drying and human activities will increase CO2 emissions by 1.13 (95% interval: 0.88–1.50) Gt yr−1 and reduce CH4 by 0.26 (0.14–0.52) GtCO2-eq yr−1, resulting in a net increase of greenhouse gas of 0.86 (0.36–1.36) GtCO2-eq yr−1 by the end of the twenty-first century under the RCP8.5 climate scenario. This drops to 0.73 (0.2–1.2) GtCO2-eq yr−1 under RCP2.6. Our results point to an urgent need to preserve pristine and rehabilitate drained peatlands to decelerate the positive feedback among water-table drawdown, increased greenhouse gas emissions and climate warming.The climate impact of water-table drawdown in peatlands is unclear as carbon dioxide emissions increase and methane emissions decrease due to drying. This study shows decreasing water-table depth results in net greenhouse gas emissions from global peatlands, despite reducing methane emissions.
ISSN:1758-678X
1758-6798
DOI:10.1038/s41558-021-01059-w