Investigating ten years of warming and enhanced snow depth on nutrient availability and greenhouse gas fluxes in a High Arctic ecosystem

ABSTRACT

Arctic warming and changing precipitation patterns are altering soil nutrient availability and other processes that control the greenhouse gas balance of high-latitude ecosystems. Changes to these biogeochemical processes will ultimately determine whether the Arctic will enhance or dampen future climate change. At the Cape Bounty Arctic Watershed Observatory, a full-factorial International Tundra Experiment site was established in 2008, allowing for the investigation of ten years of experimental warming and increased snow depth on nutrient availability and trace gas exchange in a mesic heath tundra across two growing seasons (2017 and 2018). Plots with open-top chambers (OTCs) had drier soils (p < .1) that released 1.5 times more carbon dioxide (p < .05), and this effect was enhanced in the drier growing season. Increased snow depth delayed the onset of thaw and active layer development (p < .1) and corresponded with greater nitrous oxide release (p < .05). Our results suggest that decreases to soil moisture will lead to an increase in nitrate availability, soil respiration, and nitrous oxide fluxes. Ultimately, these effects may be moderated by the magnitude of future shifts and interactions between climate variability and ecological responses to permafrost thaw.

KEYWORDS:

• Nitrogen availability
• greenhouse gases
• International Tundra Experiment (ITEX)
• snow fence
• experimental warming

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Sandra Yaacoub and Cole Robertson for assistance in resin extractions. We acknowledge and are grateful for the opportunity to conduct research on traditional Inuit territory. The authors also thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15230430.2023.2178428

Data availability

Data from this work is publicly available on the Borealis data repository: http://doi.org/10.5683/SP2/P6U9J8.

Additional information

Funding

Funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (RGPIN-2019-04151), Northern Scientific Training Program, and Polar Continental Shelf Program made this work possible.