Carbon of the Kolyma Lowland Permafrost Under Recent Change of Climate

Permafrost of the vast Siberian Coastal Plains is a potentially important source of carbon during warming periods. This lowland is underlined by continuous permafrost and the most ancient ground ice formation of Eurasia. The overwhelming majority of the modern landscape of this region contains icy loess-like loam sediments with thick polygonal ice wedges. The ice wedge landscapes are usually called 'Yedoma' or 'Ice Complex'. Compared to other arctic regions, Yedoma has a higher ice and total organic carbon content. A boundary between active and older Yedoma layers called a transitional layer was generated by the climatic optimum of the Holocene. This layer (0.1 - 2.0m thickness) has the highest excess ice content. The current climate warming is increasing active layer thickness and thermokarst and thermo-abrasion, leading to the involvement of buried terrestrial carbon into the contemporary biogeochemical cycle. Here we present results of our study of carbon content and fluxes in different types and layers of permafrost of the Kolyma Lowland as they relate to recent climate change