Ecosystem CO₂ Exchange and Its Economic Implications in Northern Permafrost Regions in the 21st Century

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Climate warming increases carbon assimilation by plant growth and also accelerates permafrost CO 2 emissions; however, the overall ecosystem CO 2 balance in permafrost regions and its economic impacts remain largely unknown. Here we synthesize in situ measurements of net ecosystem CO 2 exchange to assess current and future carbon budgets across the northern permafrost regions using the random forest model and calculate their economic implications under the Shared Socio‐economic Pathways (SSPs) based on the PAGE‐ICE model. We estimate a contemporary CO 2 emission of 1,539 Tg C during the nongrowing season and CO 2 uptake of 2,330 Tg C during the growing season, respectively. Air temperature and precipitation exert the most control over the net ecosystem exchange in the nongrowing season, while leaf area index plays a more important role in the growing season. This region will probably shift to a carbon source after 2,057 under SSP5‐8.5, with a net emission of 17 Pg C during 2057–2100. The net economic benefits of CO 2 budget will be $4.5, $5.0, and $2.9 trillion under SSP1‐2.6, SSP2‐4.5, and SSP5‐8.5, respectively. Our results imply that a high‐emission pathway will greatly reduce the economic benefit of carbon assimilation in northern permafrost regions.