Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

Prompt rewetting of drained peatlands reduces climate warming despite methane emissions

View ORCID ProfileAnke Günther, Alexandra Barthelmes, Vytas Huth, Hans Joosten, Gerald Jurasinski, Franziska Koebsch, John Couwenberg
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/748830
Anke Günther
1University of Rostock, Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Studies, Landscape Ecology, Rostock, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Anke Günther
  • For correspondence: anke.guenther@uni-rostock.de
Alexandra Barthelmes
2University of Greifswald, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Peatland Studies and Paleoecology, Greifswald, Germany
3Greifswald Mire Centre (GMC), Greifswald Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Vytas Huth
1University of Rostock, Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Studies, Landscape Ecology, Rostock, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Hans Joosten
2University of Greifswald, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Peatland Studies and Paleoecology, Greifswald, Germany
3Greifswald Mire Centre (GMC), Greifswald Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Gerald Jurasinski
1University of Rostock, Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Studies, Landscape Ecology, Rostock, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Franziska Koebsch
1University of Rostock, Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Studies, Landscape Ecology, Rostock, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
John Couwenberg
2University of Greifswald, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Peatland Studies and Paleoecology, Greifswald, Germany
3Greifswald Mire Centre (GMC), Greifswald Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Supplementary material
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

Peatlands are strategic areas for climate change mitigation because of their matchless carbon stocks1–4. Drained peatlands release this carbon to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (CO2) 5,6. Peatland rewetting effectively stops these CO2 emissions7,8 but also re-establishes the emission of methane (CH4) 9,10. Essentially, management must choose between CO2 emissions from drained or CH4 emissions from rewetted peatland. This choice must consider the radiative effects as well as the atmospheric lifetimes of both gases, with CO2 being a weak but persistent and CH4 a strong but short-lived greenhouse gas11. The resulting climatic effects are, thus, strongly time-dependent. Yet, common metrics like global warming potential (GWP) and its ‘sustained flux’ variants12,13 fail to account for temporal dynamics and how these relate to expected global warming dynamics.

We used a radiative forcing model to compare forcing dynamics of global scenarios for future peatland management using areal data from the Global Peatland Database14. Our results show that CH4 radiative forcing does not undermine the climate change mitigation potential of peatland rewetting. Instead, postponing rewetting increases the long-term warming effect of continued CO2 emissions. Unlike CO2 (and N2O) from drained peatlands that accumulates in the atmosphere, possible CH4 emission spikes upon rewetting do not add to expected peak warming when rewetting occurs before 2050. Warnings against high CH4 emissions from rewetted peatlands9 are therefore unjustified.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted August 29, 2019.
Download PDF

Supplementary Material

Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Prompt rewetting of drained peatlands reduces climate warming despite methane emissions
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Prompt rewetting of drained peatlands reduces climate warming despite methane emissions
Anke Günther, Alexandra Barthelmes, Vytas Huth, Hans Joosten, Gerald Jurasinski, Franziska Koebsch, John Couwenberg
bioRxiv 748830; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/748830
Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Prompt rewetting of drained peatlands reduces climate warming despite methane emissions
Anke Günther, Alexandra Barthelmes, Vytas Huth, Hans Joosten, Gerald Jurasinski, Franziska Koebsch, John Couwenberg
bioRxiv 748830; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/748830

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Ecology
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (4399)
  • Biochemistry (9637)
  • Bioengineering (7127)
  • Bioinformatics (24958)
  • Biophysics (12677)
  • Cancer Biology (10002)
  • Cell Biology (14406)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (7991)
  • Ecology (12152)
  • Epidemiology (2067)
  • Evolutionary Biology (16030)
  • Genetics (10957)
  • Genomics (14784)
  • Immunology (9911)
  • Microbiology (23750)
  • Molecular Biology (9516)
  • Neuroscience (51102)
  • Paleontology (370)
  • Pathology (1545)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2694)
  • Physiology (4038)
  • Plant Biology (8700)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1512)
  • Synthetic Biology (2406)
  • Systems Biology (6461)
  • Zoology (1350)