Fluxes of CO2 and CH4 in high latitude wetlands: measuring, modelling and predicting response to climate change

Abstract

This review covers selected aspects of recent international efforts to measure and model greenhouse gas emission from northern wetlands, to identify the environmental factors that control gas emission, and to investigate wetlands’responses (particularly with respect to gas emission) to global change. Both bottom-up and top-to-bottom approaches, based respectively on local observations plus inventory of gas fluxes and inverse modelling of global circulation, agree on the size of the high latitude (>60°N) contribution to global methane, which should be about 13% or 70 Tg/year. It has been shown that winter and spring fluxes are an essential part in the annual budget of CH4 and especially CO2 exchange (varying from 5 to 50%). Soil micro-organisms were shown to be able to respire during winter even at-16°C. In comparison to aerobically respiring organisms, anaerobic methanogenic bacteria were less active in frozen soil, although they are subjected to significant stimulation by soil freeze-thaw cycles. The absence of immediate coupling of methanogenesis with plant photosynthesis implies that substrates for methane formation are derived from peat decomposition rather than from root exudation.