Will accelerated soil development be a driver of Arctic Greening in the late 21st century?^#

Abstract

Take‐Home Message Climate warming is transforming the Arctic at an unprecedented rate with previously barren and sparsely vegetated landscapes undergoing “greening”. We postulate that the observed vegetation changes throughout the Arctic are not only tied to warming, but to changes in soil properties and their impacts on plants and soil microbial communities. A key to understanding extent and patterns of greening of formerly sparsely vegetated Arctic environments will be to unravel the interactions between the biosphere and the role of soil genesis.

Intensive Chemical Weathering in the Arctic During the Miocene Climatic Optimum

“…Yet the Arctic is warming rapidly (Overland et al, 2019), with recent warming of surface air temperatures around the Barents Sea of 2.7C per decade (Isaksen et al, 2022), bringing major consequences for regional and global climate, ecosystems, and human activity (Landrum and Holland, 2020). The Arctic weathering system is strongly sensitive to future climate change due to the availability of fresh, comminuted rock and mineral debris (Beaulieu et al, 2012;Millot et al, 2002;Tank et al, 2012) and the potential for rapid soil formation in a greening Arctic (Doetterl et al, 2022). Present day atmospheric CO 2 concentrations of 419 ppm approach or exceed most estimated ranges for CO 2 concentrations in the MCO of 300-500 ppm (Greenop et al, 2014), ~470-630 ppm (Sosdian et al, 2020) and 450-550 ppm (Steinthorsdottir et al, 2021b)].…”

Soil science challenges—An interdisciplinary overview of current and future topics

“…Studies investigating the cycling of SOC are not evenly distributed across the globe with most research activities conducted predominantly in temperate regions (Batjes et al, 2020;Kögel-Knabner & Amelung, 2021). This results in an underrepresentation of climatic regions, such as the high-latitudes and tropics, which are highly vulnerable to climate change and will most likely experience extensive pressure from future land use (Doetterl et al, 2022;Kirsten et al, 2019). In this issue, Kidinda et al (2022) found that nutrient availability determines SOC stabilization in tropical soils, which are both controlled by the parent rock of soils despite their advanced weathering degree.…”

Metaproteomics reveals functional partitioning and vegetational variation among permafrost-affected Arctic soil bacterial communities

“…Greening of vegetation cover across the Arctic landscape—notably the shift from tussock tundra to taller, higher-biomass woody shrubs—is one of the most prominent climate-driven shifts in Arctic terrestrial ecology, and its consequences for the soil microbial community remain unclear ( 22 - 24 ). Long-term greenhouse warming experiments at Toolik Field Station, Arctic Alaska, USA, have documented progressive reduction in topsoil trophic complexity and increases in plant stature, rooting depth, leaf litter accumulation, the evenness of topsoil microbial diversity, and subsoil microbial respiration ( 25 , 26 ).…”