InsPIRE - Investigating Peatland Initiation in Retreating glacier Environments

Peatlands are wetland landscapes that build up thick layers of organic material, locking away carbon from the atmosphere over thousands of years. They are important for regulating climate because they naturally capture and store carbon. As glaciers melt and retreat due to ongoing climate change, they expose new landscapes that can eventually become peatlands. This creates opportunities for more carbon to be stored in the future. The InsPIRE project is studying how retreating glaciers in Alaska encourage the formation of new peatlands. By looking at how peatlands developed after the last ice age and combining field observations with advanced computer models, the project will explore how peatlands respond to future glacier retreat. The goal is to better understand the role these glacier-linked peatlands play in the global carbon cycle.