Permafrost Region Greenhouse Gas Budgets Suggest a Weak CO2 Sink and CH4 and N2O Sources, But Magnitudes Differ Between Top-Down and Bottom-Up Methods

Abstract

Large stocks of soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) in northern permafrost soils are vulnerable to remobilization under climate change. However, there are large uncertainties in present-day greenhouse gas (GHG) budgets. We compare bottom-up (data-driven upscaling and process-based models) and top-down (atmospheric inversion models) budgets of carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) as well as lateral fluxes of C and N across the region over 2000–2020. Bottom-up approaches estimate higher land-to-atmosphere fluxes for all GHGs. Both bottom-up and top-down approaches show a sink of CO₂ in natural ecosystems (bottom-up: −29 (−709, 455), top-down: −587 (−862, −312) Tg CO₂-C yr⁻¹) and sources of CH₄ (bottom-up: 38 (22, 53), top-down: 15 (11, 18) Tg CH₄-C yr⁻¹) and N₂O (bottom-up: 0.7 (0.1, 1.3), top-down: 0.09 (−0.19, 0.37) Tg N₂O-N yr⁻¹). The combined global warming potential of all three gases (GWP-100) cannot be distinguished from neutral. Over shorter timescales (GWP-20), the region is a net GHG source because CH₄ dominates the total forcing. The net CO₂ sink in Boreal forests and wetlands is largely offset by fires and inland water CO₂ emissions as well as CH₄ emissions from wetlands and inland waters, with a smaller contribution from N₂O emissions. Priorities for future research include the representation of inland waters in process-based models and the compilation of process-model ensembles for CH₄ and N₂O. Discrepancies between bottom-up and top-down methods call for analyses of how prior flux ensembles impact inversion budgets, more and well-distributed in situ GHG measurements and improved resolution in upscaling techniques.