Peatland initiation and carbon accumulation in China over the last 50,000years

Higher recent peat C accumulation than that during the Holocene on the Zoige Plateau

“…Similarly, the peak peatland initiation and peat C sequestration occurred at the Holocene Thermal Maximum (HTM) period in Zoige (Fig. 6), in line with the previous study (Sun et al, 1998;Wang et al, 2014;Zhao et al, 2014). Also, a study indicated that warming in recent decades increased the height, coverage and corresponding aboveground biomass of vegetation on the QTP (Zhou et al, 2000).…”

“…Hitherto, many studies have focused on the long-term C sequestration of peatlands on the Zoige Plateau, the Northeast part of QTP (Sun et al, 2001;Zhao et al, 2011;Zhou et al, 2011). Very recently, some authors even have tried to identify the controlling factors for C accumulation dynamics during the Holocene Zhao et al, 2014). However, limited attention has been paid to the carbon fate of modern peats.…”

Carbon dynamics of peatlands in China during the Holocene

“…They also tried to identify the influencing factors for peat accumulation (Large et al, 2009;Gao et al, 2010;Zhou et al, 2010). Very recently, a synthesis effort by Zhao et al (2014) did well in providing a systematic knowledge of climate controls of peat expansion in the last 50 ka, the peat C accumulation rates based on only six peat cores, however, could not represent the C accumulation dynamic patterns on either regional or national scale. Therefore, we still lack a fundamental and comprehensive understanding of peat C accumulation and its climate controls in different regions of China.…”

Predicted areas of potential distributions of alpine wetlands under different scenarios in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, China

“…According to lake sediment records and peat-based records, wetlands in the QTP started to form in the last deglaciation and the early Holocene, and expand quickly in the early and middle Holocene which corresponds to the higher and increasing insolation and stronger Asian summer monsoon (Zhao et al, 2011(Zhao et al, , 2014Xu et al, 2013). In the QTP, suitable combination of climate (temperature and precipitation) and local topography is critical for the distribution of wetlands.…”