Holocene hydro-climatic change and effects on carbon accumulation inferred from a peat bog in the Attawapiskat River watershed, Hudson Bay Lowlands, Canada

Bunbury, Joan; Finkelstein, Sarah A.; Bollmann, Jörg

doi:10.1016/j.yqres.2012.05.013

Cited by 54 publications

(92 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Modern climate across most of the HBL falls within these boundary conditions. Thus, in spite of some documented paleoclimatic variability in the HBL 30,37,48 , peatland development has proceeded within climatic boundary conditions for northern peat initiation and expansion for much of the peat record. Further, on-going rapid land emergence, which results in a lowering of the regional hydraulic gradient, reduced drainage and sustained waterlogged soil conditions, may mask the impact of climatic variation on peatland dynamics in the HBL.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon storage and potential methane production in the Hudson Bay Lowlands since mid-Holocene peat initiation

2014

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Peatlands have influenced Holocene carbon (C) cycling by storing atmospheric C and releasing methane (CH 4 ). Yet, our understanding of contributions from the world's second largest peatland, the Hudson Bay Lowlands (HBL), Canada, to peat-climate-C-dynamics is constrained by the paucity of dated peat records and regional C-data. Here we examine HBL peatland development in relation to Holocene C-dynamics. We show that peat initiation in the HBL is tightly coupled with glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) through most of the record, and occurred within suitable climatic conditions for peatland development. HBL peatlands initiated most intensively in the mid-Holocene, when GIA was most rapid and climate was cooler and drier. As the peat mass developed, we estimate that the HBL potentially released 1-7 Tg CH 4 per year during the late Holocene. Our results indicate that the HBL currently stores a C-pool of B30 Pg C and provide support for a peatland-derived CH 4 contribution to the late Holocene atmosphere.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon storage and potential methane production in the Hudson Bay Lowlands since mid-Holocene peat initiation

2014

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“…Most observational studies have been carried out in the western and central regions of Canada (Halsey et al, 1998;Vitt et al, 2000;Beilman, 2001;Yu et al, 2003;Sannel and Kuhry, 2009). However, in recent years, studies have been conducted in the Hudson Bay Lowlands and the James Bay Lowlands of eastern Canada (Loisel and Garneau, 2010;van Bellen et al, 2011;Bunbury et al, 2012;Lamarre et al, 2012;Garneau et al, 2014;Holmquist and MacDonald, 2014;Packalen and Finkelstein, 2014). Observed LARCA in Zone I is relatively low, as peatlands initiated later in this region due to a late Holocene thermal maximum (5.0-3.0 kyr; Yu et al, 2009) and the presence of the remnants of the Laurentide ice sheet (Gorham et al, 2007).…”

Section: Canada (Zones G To J) and Alaska (Zone F)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling past, present and future peatland carbon accumulation across the pan-Arctic region

2017

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Abstract. Most northern peatlands developed during the Holocene, sequestering large amounts of carbon in terrestrial ecosystems. However, recent syntheses have highlighted the gaps in our understanding of peatland carbon accumulation. Assessments of the long-term carbon accumulation rate and possible warming-driven changes in these accumulation rates can therefore benefit from process-based modelling studies. We employed an individual-based dynamic global ecosystem model with dynamic peatland and permafrost functionalities and patch-based vegetation dynamics to quantify long-term carbon accumulation rates and to assess the effects of historical and projected climate change on peatland carbon balances across the pan-Arctic region. Our results are broadly consistent with published regional and global carbon accumulation estimates. A majority of modelled peatland sites in Scandinavia, Europe, Russia and central and eastern Canada change from carbon sinks through the Holocene to potential carbon sources in the coming century. In contrast, the carbon sink capacity of modelled sites in Siberia, far eastern Russia, Alaska and western and northern Canada was predicted to increase in the coming century. The greatest changes were evident in eastern Siberia, north-western Canada and in Alaska, where peat production hampered by permafrost and low productivity due the cold climate in these regions in the past was simulated to increase greatly due to warming, a wetter climate and higher CO 2 levels by the year 2100. In contrast, our model predicts that sites that are expected to experience reduced precipitation rates and are currently permafrost free will lose more carbon in the future.

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“…Testate amoebae have been used for tracing hydrological changes in temperate peatlands in several regions of the world (Woodland et al, 1998;Booth, 2002;Lamentowicz et al, 2008;Swindles et al, 2009;Turner et al, 2013). Testate amoebae have also been increasingly used as proxies of past hydrological conditions within the boreal and subarctic peatlands of Canada (Loisel and Garneau, 2010;van Bellen et al, 2011;Bunbury et al, 2012;Lamarre et al, 2012;Lamarre et al, 2013). However, the potential of testate amoebae for peatland palaeohydrological reconstruction has not been evaluated in the Arctic.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the use of testate amoebae for palaeohydrological reconstruction in permafrost peatlands

Swindles

Amesbury

Turner

et al. 2015

Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology

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Evaluating the use of testate amoebae for palaeohydrological reconstruction in permafrost peatlands, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology (2015), doi: 10.1016/j.palaeo.2015 This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. A C C E P T E D AbstractThe melting of high-latitude permafrost peatlands is a major concern due to a potential positive feedback on global climate change. We examine the ecology of testate amoebae in permafrost peatlands, based on sites in Arctic Sweden (~200 km north of the Arctic Circle). Multivariate statistical analysis confirms that water-table depth and moisture content are the dominant controls on the distribution of testate amoebae, corroborating the results from studies in mid-latitude peatlands. We present a new testate amoeba-based water table transfer function and thoroughly test it for the effects of spatial autocorrelation, clustered sampling design and uneven sampling gradients. We find that the transfer function has good predictive power; the best-performing model is based on tolerance-downweighted weighted averaging with inverse deshrinking (performance statistics with leave-one-out cross validation: R 2 = 0.87, RMSEP = 5.25 cm). The new transfer function was applied to a short core from Stordalen mire, and reveals a major shift in peatland ecohydrology coincident with the onset of the Little Ice Age (c. AD 1400). We also applied the model to an independent contemporary dataset from Stordalen and find that it outperforms predictions based on other published transfer functions. The new transfer function will enable palaeohydrological reconstruction from permafrost peatlands in Northern Europe, thereby permitting greatly improved understanding of the long-term ecohydrological dynamics of these important carbon stores as well as their responses to recent climate change.

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Holocene hydro-climatic change and effects on carbon accumulation inferred from a peat bog in the Attawapiskat River watershed, Hudson Bay Lowlands, Canada

Cited by 54 publications

References 36 publications

Carbon storage and potential methane production in the Hudson Bay Lowlands since mid-Holocene peat initiation

Carbon storage and potential methane production in the Hudson Bay Lowlands since mid-Holocene peat initiation

Modelling past, present and future peatland carbon accumulation across the pan-Arctic region

Evaluating the use of testate amoebae for palaeohydrological reconstruction in permafrost peatlands

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