Billions of tons of carbon sequestered in the world’s peat bogs could be released into the atmosphere in the coming decades as a result of global warming, according to a new analysis of the interplay between peat bogs, water tables, and climate change. Such an atmospheric release of even a small percentage of the carbon locked away in the world’s peat bogs would dwarf emissions of manmade carbon, scientists at Harvard University, Worcester State College, and the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology write in the current issue of the journal Nature Geoscience. "Our modeling suggests that higher temperatures could cause water tables to drop substantially, causing more peat to dry and decompose," says Paul R. Moorcroft, professor of organismic and evolutionary biology in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. "Over several centuries, some 40 percent of carbon could be lost from shallow peat bogs, while the losses could total as much as 86 percent in deep bogs." … "Peat bogs contain vast stores of carbon," Moorcroft says. "They will likely respond to the expected warming in this century by losing large amounts of carbon during dry periods."

Global Warming Predicted To Hasten Carbon Release From Peat Bogs
Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:00:00 GMT