A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall.
Last week we recorded how a rise in temperature would increase microbial decomposition in peaty(acid) soil forest floors and carbon dioxide emissions from it.
This week work undertaken by Manfred Boelter, Institute for Polar Ecology at the University of Kiel in Germany, explores the very significant Arctic Tundra region and its central role in global ecology over the next decade.
The region is 5.7 million sq.kms, over fifty per cent of it in Siberia. 98 per cent of this ecosystem is locked up in its soil. Mainly peat bogs. Presently a carbon sink, the 1.5 degrees C average increase in temperature predicted would increase permafrost loss and turn this into a net emitter of GHG. In turn, this would raise the temp more and with it metabolic activity of microfauna.
Boelter's specialty research is in deep-layer microbial activity. Until his work only estimates existed. Alarm bells will likely ring if he is ignored. Why? Answer: because he has proven that D-L microbes produce ten times more carbon per sq.m per day than earlier estimates told. What's more the tundra soil acts as a trap (or sink) to retain this until mosses slowly release carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in their life cycle.
Warm and dry here, he says, will have little added effect. The big danger - and do we know what else water has been doing around the place this past wee while - is waterlogged. Instead of carbon dioxide the GHG emitted will be worse. Methane.
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