Can the atmospheric aerosol impact on the functioning of a peatland?

The productivity of terrestrial ecosystems is determined, among other things, by solar radiation and its degree of scattering can increase or reduce it. The intensity of scattering is determined by the optical properties of the atmosphere due to the presence of particles suspended in the atmosphere, i.e. clouds and aerosols. Additionally, the amount of these substances and also the physical properties affect the radiation transfer and thus the plants ability of CO2 absorption. In the presented research, an attempt to quantify the impact of the different types of aerosols presence in the atmosphere on the amount of gross ecosystem production (GEP) in a transitional peatland in northwestern Poland was made. Three classes of cloudiness were assumed in the simulations: cloudless, medium and full cloud conditions, and an atmosphere-ecosystem model was used to assess the peatland productivity under these conditions. It was found that changes in the physical parameters of aerosols in the atmosphere can both increase and decrease the amount of CO2 uptake by peatlands by up to 8.2% and 6%, respectively. Thus, the research is extremely relevant to the global carbon balance, as peatlands are one of the largest reservoirs of organic carbon in the biosphere.