Peatlands, found in northern and tropical climates, are considered a “carbon sink” because they absorb carbon from the atmosphere causing less carbon to be released. Carbon dioxide, created by burning fossil fuels, is understood to be a cause of Earth’s warming climate.
Peatlands, according to Zicheng Yu, a professor in Lehigh University’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, only comprise about 3% of the Earth’s land area, but contain about one-third of the global soil carbon and thus have an outsized impact on the global carbon cycle — and an important role to play in global climate change.
It has been known that during the Holocene (11,700 years ago to the present) northern peatlands accumulated significant carbon stocks over several thousand years. However, almost nothing has been known about peatlands that existed before that time.
130,000 years of data show peatlands store carbon long-term | ScienceDaily