How Peatlands Capture Carbon – The New York Times

Edward Struzik: Peatlands represent only 3 percent of the earth’s land surface, but they store twice as much carbon as all the forests in the world combined. The Hudson Bay Lowlands in Canada is the world’s largest undisturbed peatland. five times more carbon More than the equivalent area in the Amazon rainforest.

miriam jones: Plants growing on the peat surface take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. In most other ecosystems, when plants die, they decompose and give that carbon back to the atmosphere. In peatlands, the water at or near the surface limits oxygen. Without oxygen, decomposition is slow. Most of this plant matter decomposes only partially, then accumulates in layers and turns into peat. Peat retains carbon because decomposition is slower than deposition, and over time peat can build up to several meters thick.

Gusti Anshari: Land use and peat fires are the main factors directly affecting the degradation of tropical peatlands. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predictions That the tropical peat ecosystem can be a major contributor to atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Jones: Destroying the earth’s peatlands could double the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Peatlands have accumulated this carbon since the last ice age, about 20,000 years ago, but mostly in the last 11,500 years. Globally, damaged peatlands are net sources of carbon – that is, they release carbon into the atmosphere through disturbances such as drainage or fire, or through drying of the peat surface and thawing of permafrost due to climate change. However, some peatlands, particularly at high latitudes in the north, remain net carbon sinks.

Struzik: When frozen peatlands in the Arctic and Arctic begin to thaw, they reach a point where they can no longer absorb and store carbon and instead begin to release it. This is already happening. Forest fires and climate change are accelerating this thaw. In 2007, the largest tundra fire recorded and burning in the Arctic. 401 square milesreleased as much carbon into the atmosphere as the tundra had stored in the previous 50 years.