Elevated CO₂ mitigated warming-enhanced carbon loss from northern peatland.

Authors

Jian Zhou, Quan Quan, Wenjuan Huang, Paul J Hanson, Daniel Ricciuto, Melanie A Mayes, Natalie A Griffiths, Verity G Salmon, Sören Eliot Weber, Jeffrey M Warren, Richard J Norby, Mara Y McPartland, Mirindi Eric Dusenge, Danielle Way, Lifen Jiang, Yu Zhou, Haodi Xu, Feng Tao, Xiaoying Shi, Weinan Chen, Yahai Zhang, Yiqi Luo

Published in

Science advances. Volume 12. Issue 44. Pages eaek1491. Oct 30, 2026. Epub Oct 30, 2026.

Abstract

Peatlands store one-third of the global soil carbon (C) on only ∼3% of Earth's land surface but risk becoming C sources to accelerate climate change due to warming-induced C loss. Elevated CO₂ (eCO₂) may mitigate this loss by boosting plant C uptake. However, how eCO₂ and climate warming interact to influence peatland C dynamics remains unclear. Here, we investigated peatland C fate at five warming levels (+0°, +2.25°, +4.5°, +6.75°, and + 9°C), each under ambient CO₂ (aCO₂) and eCO₂ (+500 parts per million), by model-guided synthesis of 18 measured variables for each of the 10 treatments from an experiment. Our results showed that the peatland C loss increased with warming at a rate of 62.6 g C m^-2 year^-1°C^-1, reaching 476.5 ± 104.7 g C m^-2 year^-1 at +9°C under aCO₂, primarily because of increased Sphagnum mortality and accelerated decomposition. eCO₂ reduced the loss rate to 17.3 g C m^-2 year^-1°C^-1, nearly halving the C loss at +9°C (269.4 ± 80.5 g C m^-2 year^-1), mainly due to enhanced tree and shrub growth. Methane emissions increased with warming, similarly under aCO₂ and eCO₂. Our findings suggest that northern peatlands likely become major C sources under climate warming, although rising atmospheric CO₂ concentration may partially slow down the C loss. Climate-driven shifts in plant community structure, rather than peat decomposition alone, play a critical role in regulating peatland C fate and may threaten the stability of peatland ecosystem functions and services in the future.

PMID:
42962038
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 31 Oct 2026.

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