Signatures of Molecular Unification and Progressive Oxidation Unfold in Dissolved Organic Matter of the Ob-Irtysh River System along Its Path to the Arctic Ocean.

The Ob-Irtysh River system is the seventh-longest one in the world. Unlike the other Great Siberian rivers, it is only slightly impacted by the continuous permafrost in its low flow. Instead, it drains the Great Vasyugan mire, which is the world largest swamp, and receives huge load of the Irtysh waters which drain the populated lowlands of the East Siberian Plain. The central challenge of this paper is to understand the processes responsible for molecular transformations of natural organic matter (NOM) in the Ob-Irtysh river system along the South-North transect. For solving this task, the NOM was isolated from the water samples collected along the 3,000 km transect using solid-phase extraction. The NOM samples were further analyzed using high resolution mass spectrometry and optical spectroscopy. The obtained results have shown a distinct trend both in molecular composition and diversity of the NOM along the South-North transect: the largest diversity was observed in the Southern "swamp-wetland" stations. The samples were dominated with humic and lignin-like components, and enriched with aminosugars. After the Irtysh confluence, the molecular nature of NOM has changed drastically: it became much more oxidized and enriched with heterocyclic N-containing compounds. These molecular features are very different from the aliphatics-rich permafrost NOM. They witnesses much more conservative nature of the NOM discharged into the Arctic by the Ob-Irtysh river system. In general, drastic reduction in molecular diversity was observed in the northern stations located in the lower Ob flow.

Source apportionment of circum-Arctic atmospheric black carbon from isotopes and modeling.

Black carbon (BC) contributes to Arctic climate warming, yet source attributions are inaccurate due to lacking observational constraints and uncertainties in emission inventories. Year-round, isotope-constrained observations reveal strong seasonal variations in BC sources with a consistent and synchronous pattern at all Arctic sites. These sources were dominated by emissions from fossil fuel combustion in the winter and by biomass burning in the summer. The annual mean source of BC to the circum-Arctic was 39 ± 10% from biomass burning. Comparison of transport-model predictions with the observations showed good agreement for BC concentrations, with larger discrepancies for (fossil/biomass burning) sources. The accuracy of simulated BC concentration, but not of origin, points to misallocations of emissions in the emission inventories. The consistency in seasonal source contributions of BC throughout the Arctic provides strong justification for targeted emission reductions to limit the impact of BC on climate warming in the Arctic and beyond.

Massive remobilization of permafrost carbon during post-glacial warming.

Recent hypotheses, based on atmospheric records and models, suggest that permafrost carbon (PF-C) accumulated during the last glaciation may have been an important source for the atmospheric CO2 rise during post-glacial warming. However, direct physical indications for such PF-C release have so far been absent. Here we use the Laptev Sea (Arctic Ocean) as an archive to investigate PF-C destabilization during the last glacial-interglacial period. Our results show evidence for massive supply of PF-C from Siberian soils as a result of severe active layer deepening in response to the warming. Thawing of PF-C must also have brought about an enhanced organic matter respiration and, thus, these findings suggest that PF-C may indeed have been an important source of CO2 across the extensive permafrost domain. The results challenge current paradigms on the post-glacial CO2 rise and, at the same time, serve as a harbinger for possible consequences of the present-day warming of PF-C soils.

Activation of old carbon by erosion of coastal and subsea permafrost in Arctic Siberia.

The future trajectory of greenhouse gas concentrations depends on interactions between climate and the biogeosphere. Thawing of Arctic permafrost could release significant amounts of carbon into the atmosphere in this century. Ancient Ice Complex deposits outcropping along the ~7,000-kilometre-long coastline of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS), and associated shallow subsea permafrost, are two large pools of permafrost carbon, yet their vulnerabilities towards thawing and decomposition are largely unknown. Recent Arctic warming is stronger than has been predicted by several degrees, and is particularly pronounced over the coastal ESAS region. There is thus a pressing need to improve our understanding of the links between permafrost carbon and climate in this relatively inaccessible region. Here we show that extensive release of carbon from these Ice Complex deposits dominates (57 ± 2 per cent) the sedimentary carbon budget of the ESAS, the world's largest continental shelf, overwhelming the marine and topsoil terrestrial components. Inverse modelling of the dual-carbon isotope composition of organic carbon accumulating in ESAS surface sediments, using Monte Carlo simulations to account for uncertainties, suggests that 44 ± 10 teragrams of old carbon is activated annually from Ice Complex permafrost, an order of magnitude more than has been suggested by previous studies. We estimate that about two-thirds (66 ± 16 per cent) of this old carbon escapes to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, with the remainder being re-buried in shelf sediments. Thermal collapse and erosion of these carbon-rich Pleistocene coastline and seafloor deposits may accelerate with Arctic amplification of climate warming.