Figure 6: Illustration showing the land-to-ocean fluxes during glacial and deglacial periods.
From: Massive remobilization of permafrost carbon during post-glacial warming
(a) Glacial conditions (for example, LGM) promote rapid accumulation of permafrost carbon3,4 and result in a thin active layer45 (dark brown soil colour), while the dominant feature in the watershed is a continuous permafrost (light brown soil colour) with the presence of ice-wedge polygons. Under these conditions, lateral carbon fluxes are small46. (b) As the temperature increases during the deglaciation, the permafrost conditions change (development of thermokarst lakes and river channelization), while deepening of the active layer (white arrow) releases material previously locked in frozen soils. This ultimately increases the sediment production (horizontal black arrow), which is illustrated by the darker colour of the river network. The destabilization of permafrost soils probably result in large CO2 venting from freshly thawed PF-C (black vertical arrow). Another source of material includes the coastal erosion (black spiral) as the sea level rises.
