Peatlands are of great importance as carbon stores and are a critical source for releasing carbon dioxide(CO_2)and methane (CH_4)under changing circumstances, e.g., climate change. Although peatlands cover only 3% of the land and freshwater surface of the planet, about one-third of the total world soil carbon are stored in boreal and subarctic peat. Thus, investigating the influence of key factors on organic matter mineralization processes is urgently required for greater understanding of carbon cycling in northern peatland. In the current study, we employed incubation experiments to characterize the influence of temperature(5.4~20.1 ℃), pH value(4~7), and peat quality(50~250 cm)on CO_2 and CH_4 release from the water-saturated, anoxic layer in northern peatland. The results showed that the range of initial production rates of CO_2 and CH_4 for the different treatments were 0.399~2.27 mumol·g~(-1) DW·d~(-1) and 0.018~0.180 mumol·g~(-1) DW·d~(-1), respectively, and the range of thresholds were 1.38~91.6 mumol·g~(-1) DW and 1.12~9.02 mumol·g~(-1) DW, respectively. The initial production rates of CO_2 and CH_4 increased significantly with temperature, but the effect was greater on CH_4. The pH value was positively correlated with the initial production rate and the threshold value of CO_2, whereas the initial production rate of CH_4 was not significantly affected by pH value, and the threshold of CH_4 was high, at pH 5~6. For the peat soil sampled from different depths, the peat soil at a depth of 50 cm had the highest CO_2 and CH_4 emissions, whereas the peat from depths greater than 50 cm presumably did not produce any CO_2 or CH_4. The results indicate that environmental factors have great impacts on carbon storage in natural peatlands.