Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: Northern peatlands have been accumulating organic matter since the start of the Holocene, and are now a substantial store of terrestrial carbon. However, their current status as carbon sinks is less clear, because of the possible effects of climate change, air pollution, grazing and drainage etc., and the difficulties of accurate measurement with suitable time resolution. Such measurements are particularly lacking in the UK. Here, we present multi-year eddy covariance measurements of the carbon fluxes at a relatively undisturbed ombrotrophic blanket bog in the Flow Country of northern Scotland. The site consistently acted as a moderate sink for CO 2 over all the measurement years (mean net ecosystem exchange (NEE) of −114 g C m −2 y −1 ), similar in magnitude to other measurements in the boreal and tundra zones, and rather higher than the existing measurements at other sites in the UK and Ireland. Generally, the NEE of CO 2 was relatively insensitive to moderate inter-annual variations in weather. Non-CO 2 losses comprised 11% of gross primary production, mainly from methane emissions. Accounting for these terms, the net ecosystem carbon balance was −50 g C-CO 2 eq m −2 y −1 . The contemporary carbon sink was larger than estimates from local peat cores, based on peat accumulation over the last several thousand years, but in the middle of the range of estimates which used spheroidal carbonaceous particles to estimate peat accumulation rates over the last century.
Source: Environmental Research Letters
Institution: UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
Language: English
Subfield: Ecology
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDGs: Climate action, Life on land
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,045
OpenAlex ID: W1471954159