Permafrost carbon could produce a positive climate feedback. Until now, the ecosystem carbon budgets in the permafrost regions remain uncertain. Moreover, the frequently used models have some limitations especially regarding to the freeze-thaw process. Herein, we improved the IBIS model by incorporating an unfrozen water scheme and by specifying the parameters to estimate the present and future carbon budget of different land cover types (desert steppe, steppe, meadow, and wet meadow) in the permafrost regions. Incorporating an unfrozen water scheme reduced the mean errors in the soil temperature and soil water content by 25.2%, and the specifying leaf area parameters reduced the errors in the net primary productivity (NPP) by 79.9%. Further, the simulation results showed that steppes are carbon sources (39.16 gC/m(2)/a) and the meadows are carbon sinks (-63.42 gC/m(2)/a ). Under the climate warming scenarios of RCP 2.6, RCP 6.0, and RCP 8.5, the desert steppe and alpine steppe would assimilated more carbon, while the meadow and wet meadow were projected to shift from carbon sinks to carbon sources in 2071-2100, implying that the land cover type plays an important role in simulating the source/sink effects of permafrost ecosystem carbon in the IBIS model. The results highlight the importance of unfrozen water to the soil hydrothermal regime and specific leaf area for the growth of alpine vegetation, and present new insights on the difference of the responses of various permafrost ecosystems to climate warming.

Mega retrogressive thaw slumps (MRTS, >10(6) m(3)) are a major threat to Arctic infrastructure, alter regional biogeochemistry, and impact Arctic carbon budgets. However, processes initiating and reactivating MRTS are insufficiently understood. We hypothesize that MRTS preferentially develop a polycyclic behavior because the material is thermally and mechanically prepared for subsequent generation failure. In contrast to remote sensing, geophysical reconnaissance reveals the inner structure and relative thermal state of MRTS decameters beneath slump surfaces, potentially controlling polycyclicity. Based on their life cycle development, five (M)RTS were studied on Herschel Island, an MRTS hotspot on the Canadian Beaufort coast. We combine >2 km of electrical resistivity tomography (ERT), 500 m of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and annual monitoring of headwall retreat from 2004 to 2013 to reveal the thermal state, internal structure, and volume loss of slumps. ERT data were calibrated with unfrozen-frozen transitions from frost probing of active layer thickness and shallow boreholes. In initial stage MRTS, ERT displays surficial thermal perturbations a few meters deep, coincident with recent mud pool and mud flow development. In early stage polycyclic MRTS, ERT shows decameter deep-reaching thermal perturbations persisting even 300 years after the last activation. In peak-stage polycyclic MRTS, 3D-ERT highlights actively extending deep-reaching thermal perturbations caused by gully incisions, mud slides and mud flows. GPR and headwall monitoring reveal structural disturbance by historical mud flows, ice-rich permafrost, and a decadal quantification of headwall retreat and slump floor erosion. We show that geophysical signatures identify long-lasting thermal and mechanical disturbances in MRTS predefining their susceptibility to polycyclic reactivation.

Solar radiation balances significantly affect Earth's surface energy balance and climate change. Studying top-of-the-atmosphere (TOA) albedo changes is of great significance for understanding Earth's energy budget and atmospheric circulation. The Loess Plateau (LP), located in the middle reaches of the Yellow River in China, is one of the most severely eroded areas in the world. In this paper, long-term remote sensing data were used to analyze the changes in the TOA albedo in the LP from 1982 to 2016. The results showed that the TOA albedo, its atmospheric contribution (AC), and surface contribution (SC) exhibited decreasing trends: -0.0012, -0.0010, and -0.0003 a-1. The spatial pattern of the TOA albedo was similar to AC, which indicates that AC dominates the change in the TOA albedo. We detected driving factors for AC and SC and found that the cloud fraction (CF) was the main driving factor of the AC, whereas the soil moisture (SM) dominated the SC. The driving factors of two typical regions with a significantly decreasing trend in the TOA albedo were also detected. The Mu Us Desert, where vegetation improved significantly, showed a decreasing trend in the TOA albedo, and we found that NDVI was the main driving factor for the change in the SC of the TOA albedo. However, the Eastern Qilian Mountains, where snow cover decreased in recent years, also showed a significant decreasing trend in the TOA albedo; the SC here was mainly driven by the changes in snow cover days (SCD). These results indicate that changes in the surface environment alter the radiation balance. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: The Loess Plateau in China is one of the most severe cases of soil erosion in the world, and ecological restoration projects have been carried out to recover the fragile ecological environment. Our study was designed to explore changes in the top-of-the-atmosphere (TOA) albedo of the Loess Plateau between 1982 and 2016 using a long time series of multisource satellite products, and driving factors in the atmosphere and at the surface were analyzed. We concluded that the TOA albedo of the Loess Plateau decreased over 35 years, and its atmospheric contribution dominated the change in the TOA albedo. However, the significant ecological improvement in the Loess Plateau, especially in the central vegetation recovery region, such as the Mu Us Desert, was also strongly related to the regional changes in the surface contribution of the TOA albedo. The climate changes had a considerable impact on the eastern branch of the Qilian Mountains in the Qinghai region, where the decline in snow cover days affected the local Alpine meadow ecosystems; therefore, snow cover days also played a decisive role in the local variation of the surface contribution of the TOA albedo.

Although many studies have found that global warming has caused permafrost to thaw, we still lack understanding of the mechanism relating permafrost thawing and ecosystem carbon budgets. To compare the effects of freeze-thaw cycles on the grassland ecosystem carbon budget between a permafrost area (PA) and a non-permafrost area (NPA), we established two carbon dioxide flux towers since 2015 to monitor the net ecosystem exchange by eddy covariance (EC) systems at the site of Nalaikh in PA and Hustai in NPA. The gross primary production (GPP), respiration by ecosystems (Reco), and net ecosystem production (NEP) from 2016 to 2019 were estimated using EddyPro 7 and ToviTM. The result showed that, at the PA and NPA sites, the annual GPP was 686.3 and 654.9 g C m- 2 y-1, Reco was 611.5 and 699.6 g C m- 2 y-1, and NEP was 73.8 and -45.5 g C m-2 y- 1, respectively, which implies that the grassland ecosystem was a carbon sink in the PA but a carbon source in the NPA. Then, the effect of the freeze-thaw cycles on the carbon budget was also analyzed. The NEP in the PA (35.3 g C m-2) was significantly larger than in the NPA (0.3 g C m-2) during the thawing period and, similarly, the NEP in the PA (121.7 g C m-2) was also larger than in the NPA (72.1 g C m-2) during the thawed period, implying significantly larger carbon absorption in the PA than in the NPA during both the thawing and thawed periods. Finally, correlation analysis results revealed that the soil water content (SWC) plays an important role in maintaining the ecosystem carbon budget. The degradation of permafrost might accelerate soil thawing and promote the transfer of soil water, and thus greatly affect the carbon budget of grassland ecosystems in Mongolia.

An estimated 1700 Pg of carbon is frozen in the Arctic permafrost and the fate of this carbon is unclear because of the complex interaction of biophysical, ecological and biogeochemical processes that govern the Arctic carbon budget. Two key processes determining the region's long-term carbon budget are: (a) carbon uptake through increased plant growth, and (b) carbon release through increased heterotrophic respiration (HR) due to warmer soils. Previous predictions for how these two opposing carbon fluxes may change in the future have varied greatly, indicating that improved understanding of these processes and their feedbacks is critical for advancing our predictive ability for the fate of Arctic peatlands. In this study, we implement and analyze a vertically-resolved model of peatland soil carbon into a cohort-based terrestrial biosphere model to improve our understanding of how on-going changes in climate are altering the Arctic carbon budget. A key feature of the formulation is that accumulation of peat within the soil column modifies its texture, hydraulic conductivity, and thermal conductivity, which, in turn influences resulting rates of HR within the soil column. Analysis of the model at three eddy covariance tower sites in the Alaskan tundra shows that the vertically-resolved soil column formulation accurately captures the zero-curtain phenomenon, in which the temperature of soil layers remain at or near 0 degrees C during fall freezeback due to the release of latent heat, is critical to capturing observed patterns of wintertime respiration. We find that significant declines in net ecosystem productivity (NEP) occur starting in 2013 and that these declines are driven by increased HR arising from increased precipitation and warming. Sensitivity analyses indicate that the cumulative NEP over the decade responds strongly to the estimated soil carbon stock and more weakly to vegetation abundance at the beginning of the simulation.

As the largest biogeochemically active terrestrial reserve of carbon (C), soils have the potential to either mitigate or amplify rates of climate change. Ecosystems with large C stocks and high rates of soil C sequestration, in particular, may have outsized impacts on regional and global C cycles. Montane meadows have large soil C stocks relative to surrounding ecosystems. However, anthropogenic disturbances in many meadows may have altered the balance of C inputs and outputs, potentially converting these soils from net C sinks to net sources of C to the atmosphere. Here, we quantified ecosystem-level C inputs and outputs to estimate the annual net soil C flux from 13 montane meadows spanning a range of conditions throughout the California Sierra Nevada. Our results suggest that meadow soils can be either large net C sinks (577.6 +/- 250.5 g C m(-2) y(-1)) or sources of C to the atmosphere (- 391.6 +/- 154.2 g C m(-2) y(-1)). Variation in the direction and magnitude of net soil C flux appears to be driven by belowground C inputs. Vegetation species and functional group composition were not associated with the direction of net C flux, but climate and watershed characteristics were. Our results demonstrate that, per unit area, montane meadows hold a greater potential for C sequestration than the surrounding forest. However, legacies of disturbance have converted some meadows to strong net C sources. Accurate quantification of ecosystem-level C fluxes is critical for the development of regional C budgets and achieving global emissions goals.

Despite the fact that winter lasts for a third of the year in the temperate grasslands, winter processes in these ecosystems have been inadequately represented in global climate change studies. While climate change increases the snow depth in the Mongolian Plateau, grasslands in this region are also simultaneously facing high pressure from land use changes, such as grazing, mowing, and agricultural cultivation. To elucidate how these changes affect the grasslands' winter nitrogen (N) budget, we manipulated snow depth under different land use practices and conducted a(15)NH(4)(15)NO(3)-labeling experiment. The change in(15)N recovery during winter time was assessed by measuring the(15)N/N-14 ratio of root, litter, and soils (0-5 cm and 5-20 cm). Soil microbial biomass carbon and N as well as N2O emission were also measured. Compared with ambient snow, the deepened snow treatment reduced total(15)N recovery on average by 21.7% and 19.2% during the first and second winter, respectively. The decrease in(15)N recovery was primarily attributed to deepened snow increasing the soil temperature and thus microbial biomass. The higher microbial activity under deepened snow then subsequently resulted in higher gaseous N loss. The N2O emission under deepened snow (0.144 kg N ha(-1)) was 6.26 times than that of under ambient snow (0.023 kg N ha(-1)) during the period of snow cover and spring thaw. Although deepened snow reduced soil(15)N recovery, the surface soil N concentration remained unchanged after five years' deepened snow treatment because deepened snow reduced soil N loss via wind erosion by 86%.

Quantifying net CO2 exchange (NEE) of arctic terrestrial ecosystems in response to changes in climatic and environmental conditions is central to understanding ecosystem functioning and assessing potential feedbacks of the carbon cycle to future climate changes. However, annual CO2 budgets for arctic tundra are rare due to the difficulties of performing measurements during non-growing seasons. It is still unclear to what extent arctic tundra ecosystems currently act as a CO2 source, sink or are in balance. This study presents year-round eddy-covariance (EC) measurements of CO2 fluxes for an arctic heath ecosystem on Disko Island, West Greenland (69 degrees N) over five years. Based on a fusion of year-round EC-derived CO2 fluxes, soil temperature and moisture, the process-oriented model (CoupModel) has been constrained to quantify an annual budget and characterize seasonal patterns of CO2 fluxes. The results show that total photosynthesis corresponds to -202 +/- 20 g C m(-2) yr(-1) with ecosystem respiration of 167 +/- 28 g C m(-2) yr(-1), resulting in NEE of -35 +/- 15 g C m(-2) y(-1). The respiration loss is mainly described as decomposition of near- surface litter. A year with an anomalously deep snowpack shows a threefold increase in the rate of ecosystem respiration compared to other years. Due to the high CO2 emissions during that winter, the annual budget results in a marked reduction in the CO2 sink. The seasonal patterns of photosynthesis and soil respiration were described using response functions of the forcing atmosphere and soil conditions. Snow depth, topography-related soil moisture, and growing season warmth are identified as important environmental characteristics which most influence seasonal rates of gas exchange.

Increase of surface temperatures has long been recognized as an unequivocal response to radiative forcing and one of the most important implications for global warming. However, it remains unclear whether the variation of ground surface temperature (GST) and soil temperatures is consistent with simultaneous changes of the near-surface air and land (or skin) surface temperatures (T-a and LST). In this study, a seven-year continuous observation of GST, T-a, and surface water and heat exchange was carried out at an elevational permafrost site at Chalaping, northeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Results showed a distinct retarding of warming on the ground surface and subsurface under the presence of dense vegetation and moist peat substrates. Mean annual T-a and LST increased at noteworthy rates of 0.22 and 0.32 degrees C/a, respectively, while mean annual GST increased only at a rate of 0.057 degrees C/a. No obvious trends were detected for the four radiation budgets except the soil heat flux (G), which significantly increased at a rate of 0.29 W.m(-2).a(-1), presumably inducing the melting of ground ice and resulted in much higher moisture content through the summers of 2015 and 2016 than preceding years and subsequent 2017 at the depths between 80 and 120 cm. However, no noticeable immediate variations of soil temperatures occurred owing to the large latent heat effect (thermal inertia) and the extending zero-curtain period. We suggest that a better protected eco-environment, particularly the surface vegetation, helps preserving the underlying permafrost, and thus to mitigates the potential degradation of elevational permafrost on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

Methane (CH4) is a powerful greenhouse gas controlled by both biotic and abiotic processes. Few studies have investigated CH4 fluxes in subarctic heath ecosystems, and climate change-induced shifts in CH4 flux and the overall carbon budget are therefore largely unknown. Hence, there is an urgent need for long-term in situ experiments allowing for the study of ecosystem processes over time scales relevant to environmental change. Here we present in situ CH4 and CO2 flux measurements from a wet heath ecosystem in northern Sweden subjected to 16 years of manipulations, including summer warming with open-top chambers, birch leaf litter addition, and the combination thereof. Throughout the snow-free season, the ecosystem was a net sink of CH4 and CO2 (CH4 -0.27 mg C m(-2) d(-1); net ecosystem exchange -1827 mg C m(-2) d(-1)), with highest CH4 uptake rates (-0.70 mg C m(-2) d(-1)) during fall. Warming enhanced net CO2 flux, while net CH4 flux was governed by soil moisture. Litter addition and the combination with warming significantly increased CH4 uptake rates, explained by a pronounced soil drying effect of up to 32% relative to ambient conditions. Both warming and litter addition also increased the seasonal average concentration of dissolved organic carbon in the soil. The site was a carbon sink with a net uptake of 60 g Cm-2 over the snow-free season. However, warming reduced net carbon uptake by 77%, suggesting that this ecosystem type might shift from snow-free season sink to source with increasing summer temperatures. Plain Language Summary: Much attention has been directed toward methane (CH4) dynamics in peatlands and wet ecosystems at high latitudes, which are considered net CH4 sources which intensify the greenhouse effect and lead to further warming. However, few studies have hitherto investigated CH4 fluxes in subarctic heath ecosystems, which likely exhibit both CH4 production and uptake. Therefore, climate-induced changes in CH4 exchange and the overall carbon balance are largely unknown. In this unique long-term field experiment, we investigated the response of biological CH4 uptake (microbial CH4 consumption) to increased summer warming by open-top chambers and deciduous leaf litter input in a wet heath ecosystem in northern Sweden, representative of a large proportion of the tundra landscape. We found that leaf litter addition significantly increases CH4 uptake rates due to a pronounced soil drying effect, which is intensified in combination with warming. Warming enhances CO2 release, while CH4 uptake is controlled by soil moisture. The study demonstrates the sensitivity and capacity of a wet heath ecosystem to function as a net CH4 sink. However, it was also shown that higher summer temperatures might shift the ecosystem toward a net carbon source due to an increase in CO2 release, thereby enhancing the greenhouse effect.