Organic carbon stored in a thermokarst affected landscape on Baldwin Peninsula, Alaska


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loeka.jongejans [ at ] awi.de

Abstract

As Arctic warming continues and permafrost degrades, more organic carbon (OC) will be decomposed in high northern latitudes. Still, uncertainties remain in the quality and quantity of OC stored in permafrost. This study presents OC data from permafrost deposits on the Baldwin Peninsula, West-Alaska. We analyzed cryostratigraphical, biogeochemical and biomarker parameters of yedoma- and drained thermokarst lake basin (DTLB) deposits as well as thermokarst lake sediments to identify the size and quality of OC pools in ice-rich permafrost. Here we show that two thirds of soil OC in this region are stored in frozen DTLB deposits and that the lake sediments have the highest volumetric OC content. The n-alkane distribution shows, however, that OC stored in yedoma is of higher quality than that stored in DTLB deposits. These findings highlight the importance of molecular OC analysis for determining the potential future greenhouse gas emissions from thawing permafrost.



Item Type
Conference (Talk)
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Published
Event Details
5th European Conference On Permafrost, 23 Jun 2018 - 01 Jul 2018, Chamonix, France.
Eprint ID
47509
Cite as
Jongejans, L. L. , Strauss, J. , Lenz, J. , Peterse, F. , Mangelsdorf, K. , Fuchs, M. and Grosse, G. (2018): Organic carbon stored in a thermokarst affected landscape on Baldwin Peninsula, Alaska / P. Deline , X. Bodin and L. Ravanel (editors) , 5th European Conference On Permafrost, Chamonix, France, 23 June 2018 - 1 July 2018 .


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