Publications by authors named "W QUINTON"
Permafrost is ground that remains at or below 0 °C for two or more consecutive years. It is overlain by an active layer which thaws and freezes annually. The difference between these definitions - the active layer based on pore water phase and permafrost based on soil temperature - leads to challenges when monitoring and modelling permafrost environments.
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- High-latitude surface energy budgets (SEBs) are important for understanding land-climate interactions in the Arctic, but uncertainties in their predictions remain.
- A study analyzed SEB observations from 1994 to 2021 and found that vegetation type is a key predictor of SEB components during Arctic summers, often matching or exceeding differences seen between vegetation and glacier surfaces.
- The study also revealed that the timing of SEB fluxes varies significantly with vegetation type, affecting snow-cover dynamics and suggesting that better representations of Arctic vegetation in models could enhance future Earth system predictions.
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- Peatlands in high latitudes act as long-term carbon sinks due to the higher production of plant biomass during the growing season compared to carbon loss in the non-growing season.
- As temperatures rise, particularly during the colder months, there are concerns that the decomposition of organic material in these soils will accelerate, leading to increased carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from northern peatlands.
- Laboratory tests showed that boreal peat soils produced CO₂ at a higher rate with temperature increases compared to temperate soils, indicating that typical models may not accurately predict emissions, especially during freeze-thaw cycles.
Naturally-ignited wildfires are increasing in frequency and severity in northern regions, contributing to rapid permafrost thaw-induced landscape change driven by climate warming. Low-severity wildfires typically result in minor organic matter loss. The impacts of such fires on the hydrological and geochemical dynamics of peat plateau-wetland complexes have not been examined.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDespite occupying a small fraction of the landscape, fluvial networks are disproportionately large emitters of CO and CH , with the potential to offset terrestrial carbon sinks. Yet the extent of this offset remains uncertain, because current estimates of fluvial emissions often do not integrate beyond individual river reaches and over the entire fluvial network in complex landscapes. Here we studied broad patterns of concentrations and isotopic signatures of CO and CH in 50 streams in the western boreal biome of Canada, across an area of 250,000 km .
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