Modeling Holocene Peatland Soil Carbon Accumulation in North America

<p>This dataset contains the files required to reproduce all the figures presented in the paper <em>Modeling Holocene Peatland Soil Carbon Accumulation in North America.</em> All figures are produced by Matlab. The scripts are *.m files while the input data could be *.txt or *.mat files. </p>

<p>Peatlands are important sources and sinks for carbon-based greenhouse gases. The quantification of their carbon accumulation still has a large uncertainty due to large data gaps and lack of process-based modeling tools. Here, a process-based biogeochemistry model developed for peatland ecosystems was calibrated based on peatland site-level data of long-term peat C accumulation rates. The model was then applied to quantify the C accumulation rates and stocks within North America peatlands over the last 12,000 years. We estimated that 85-174 Pg C were accumulated in North American peatlands over the study period including 0.37-0.76 Pg C in subtropical peatlands. Our model suggested that during the period from 10,000 to 8,000 years ago, the warmer and wetter conditions might have played an important role in stimulating peat C accumulation by enhancing plant photosynthesis. Enhanced peat decomposition due to warming slowed the C accumulation through the rest of the Holocene.</p>