How does climate change impact permafrost forests? This is what a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences hopes to address as an international team of researchers led by the Osaka Metropolitan University investigated changes in carbon dioxide sinks (CO2 sinks) in permafrost forests over a 20-year period. This study holds the potential to help researchers better understand the long-term impacts of climate change on permafrost forests and the potential steps that can be taken to help predict this change going forward.
For the study, which was conducted between 2003 and 2022, the researchers examined black spruce forests in the interior of Alaska to ascertain how much CO2 they absorbed during that period because of increased atmospheric CO2 from climate change. In the end, the researchers found an increase in the number of black spruce trees due to increased wetness from increased temperatures, which resulted in an almost 20 percent increase in CO2 sinks in the region.
“The 20 years of observational data that we have is, as far as we know, the longest record of such research on permafrost forests in the world,” said Dr. Masahito Ueyama, who is an associate professor in the Graduate School of Agriculture at the Osaka Metropolitan University and lead author of the study. “However, since it is difficult to apply the findings and data from those 20 years to a future world in which warming continues, further long-term observations are needed. But we hope that our findings will help verify and improve the accuracy of warming prediction models.”
This study comes as more than half of CO2 emissions are estimated to be absorbed annually from oceans and plants worldwide, which could only increase due to the long-term impacts of climate change. Therefore, this study could help she light on what steps can be taken to help mitigate these impacts and reduce the burden of worldwide carbon sinks worldwide, as well.
What new discoveries about CO2 sinks and permafrost forests will researchers make in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, EurekAlert!, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Featured Image: Image of a data collection tower in Fairbanks, Alaska, that was used for the study. (Credit: Osaka Metropolitan University)