A better understanding of how soil carbon is distributed in the Arctic

Two scientific articles bring a better understanding of the spatial variability of soil organic carbon in the Arctic permafrost region. One article published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles led by UmeƄ researcher Matthias Siewert, and with Gustaf Hugelius as co-author, is describing how permafrost and periglacial landforms cause a unique variability in Arctic soils. A second article in Science Advances provides a new map for the soil organic carbon stored in the circumpolar permafrost region.

Ice-wedges on Herschel Island. Photo: Matthias Siewert.
Ice-wedges on Herschel Island. Photo: Matthias Siewert.


- These studies show the unique properties of soils in the permafrost region. To move further, we need to use this knowledge to better project how thawing permafrost will affect future climate, which means focusing on development of new types of models that account for landforms, says Gustaf Hugelius, researcher at the Department of Physical Geography and the Bolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm University.

Read more about the results at bolin.su.se and in the scientific articles:

1. Siewert, M. B., Lantuit, H., Richter, A., & Hugelius, G. (2021). Permafrost causes unique fine-scale spatial variability across tundra soils. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 35, e2020GB006659. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GB006659

2. Mishra, U., Hugelius, G. Shelev, E., Yang, Y., Strauss, J. Lupachev, A., Harden, J.W., Jastrow, J.D., Ping, C.-P., Riley, W. J., Schuur, E. A. G., Matamala, R., Palmtag, J., Kuhry, P., Treat, C.C., Zubrzycki, S., Hoffmanm, F., Elberling, B., Camill, P., Veremeeva, A., Orr, A. (2021). Spatial heterogeneity and environmental predictors of permafrost region soil organic carbon stocks. Science Advances, 7, eaaz5236. https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/9/eaaz5236.abstract