Responses of Soil CO(2) Fluxes to Short-Term Experimental Warming in Alpine Steppe Ecosystem, Northern Tibet

Soil carbon dioxide (CO(2)) emission is one of the largest fluxes in the global carbon cycle. Therefore small changes in the size of this flux can have a large effect on atmospheric CO(2) concentrations and potentially constitute a powerful positive feedback to the climate system. Soil CO(2) fluxes in the alpine steppe ecosystem of Northern Tibet and their responses to short-term experimental warming were investigated during the growing season in 2011. The results showed that the total soil CO(2) emission fluxes during the entire growing season were 55.82 and 104.31 g C m(-2) for the control and warming plots, respectively. Thus, the soil CO(2) emission fluxes increased 86.86% with the air temperature increasing 3.74°C. Moreover, the temperature sensitivity coefficient (Q (10)) of the control and warming plots were 2.10 and 1.41, respectively. The soil temperature and soil moisture could partially explain the temporal variations of soil CO(2) fluxes. The relationship between the temporal variation of soil CO(2) fluxes and the soil temperature can be described by exponential equation. These results suggest that warming significantly promoted soil CO(2) emission in the alpine steppe ecosystem of Northern Tibet and indicate that this alpine ecosystem is very vulnerable to climate change. In addition, soil temperature and soil moisture are the key factors that controls soil organic matter decomposition and soil CO(2) emission, but temperature sensitivity significantly decreases due to the rise in temperature.