Abstract
timescale relies heavily on individual site-based reconstructions. For the first time, we synthesise peatland macrocharcoal records from across North America, Europe, and Patagonia to reveal regional variation in peatland burning during the Holocene. We used an existing database of proximal sedimentary charcoal to represent regional burning trends in the wider landscape for each region.
Long-term trends in peatland burning appear to be largely climate driven, with human activities likely having an increasing influence in the late Holocene. Warmer conditions during the Holocene Thermal Maximum (~9 to 6 cal. ka BP) were associated with greater peatland burning in North America’s Atlantic coast, southern Scandinavia and the Baltics, and Patagonia. Since the Little Ice Age, peatland burning has declined across North America and in some areas of Europe. This decline is mirrored by a decrease in wider landscape burning in some, but not all sub-regions, linked to fire-suppression policies, and landscape fragmentation caused by agricultural expansion. Peatlands demonstrate lower
susceptibility to burning than the wider landscape in several instances, probably because of autogenic processes that maintain high levels of near-surface wetness even during drought. Nonetheless, widespread drying and degradation of peatlands, particularly in Europe, has likely increased their vulnerability to burning in recent centuries. Consequently, peatland restoration efforts are important to mitigate the risk of peatland fire under a changing climate. Finally, we make recommendations for future research to improve our understanding of the controls on peatland fires.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 108020 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | Quaternary Science Reviews |
| Volume | 305 |
| Early online date | 11 Mar 2023 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Apr 2023 |
Bibliographical note
/© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)Funder
PAGES has been supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, Swiss National Science Foundation, Swiss Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Sciences. We acknowledge the following financial support: U.K. Natural Environment Research Council Training Grants NE/L002574/1 (T.G.S.) and NE/S007458/1 (R.E.F.); Dutch Foundation for the Conservation of Irish Bogs, Quaternary Research Association and Leverhulme Trust RPG-2021-354 (G.T.S.); the Academy of Finland (M.V.); PAI/SIA 77180002 and FONDECYT Iniciación 11220705 - ANID, Chile (C.A.M.); R20F0002 (PATSER) ANID Chile (R.D.M.); Swedish Strategic Research Area (SRA) MERGE (ModElling the Regional and Global Earth system) (M.J.G.); Polish National Science Centre (NCN) Grant numbers 2018/29/B/ST10/00120 (K.A.), 2021/41/B/ST10/00060 (M.L.), 2018/31/B/ST10/02498 and 2019/35/O/ST10/02903 (M.S.); Russian Science Foundation Grant No. 19-14-00102 (Y.A.M.); University of Latvia Grant No. AAp2016/B041/Zd2016/AZ03 and the Estonian Science Council grant PRG323 (TrackLag) (N.S. and A.M.); U.S. Geological Survey Land Change Science/Climate Research & Development Program (M.J., L.A., and D.W.); German Research Foundation (DFG), grant MA 8083/2–1 (P.M.) and grant BL 563/19–1 (K.H.K.); German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), grant no. 57044554, Faculty of Geosciences, University of Münster, and Bavarian University Centre for Latin America (BAYLAT) (K.H.K.)Funding
PAGES has been supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, Swiss National Science Foundation, Swiss Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Sciences. We acknowledge the following financial support: U.K. Natural Environment Research Council Training Grants NE/L002574/1 (T.G.S.) and NE/S007458/1 (R.E.F.); Dutch Foundation for the Conservation of Irish Bogs, Quaternary Research Association and Leverhulme Trust RPG-2021-354 (G.T.S.); the Academy of Finland (M.V.); PAI/SIA 77180002 and FONDECYT Iniciación 11220705 - ANID, Chile (C.A.M.); R20F0002 (PATSER) ANID Chile (R.D.M.); Swedish Strategic Research Area (SRA) MERGE (ModElling the Regional and Global Earth system) (M.J.G.); Polish National Science Centre (NCN) Grant numbers 2018/29/B/ST10/00120 (K.A.), 2021/41/B/ST10/00060 (M.L.), 2018/31/B/ST10/02498 and 2019/35/O/ST10/02903 (M.S.); Russian Science Foundation Grant No. 19-14-00102 (Y.A.M.); University of Latvia Grant No. AAp2016/B041/Zd2016/AZ03 and the Estonian Science Council grant PRG323 (TrackLag) (N.S. and A.M.); U.S. Geological Survey Land Change Science/Climate Research & Development Program (M.J., L.A., and D.W.); German Research Foundation (DFG), grant MA 8083/2–1 (P.M.) and grant BL 563/19–1 (K.H.K.); German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), grant no. 57044554, Faculty of Geosciences, University of Münster, and Bavarian University Centre for Latin America (BAYLAT) (K.H.K.)
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Bavarian University Centre for Latin America | |
| Dutch Foundation for the Conservation of Irish Bogs | |
| Estonian Science Council | PRG323 |
| Swedish Strategic Research Area | |
| United States Geological Survey | |
| National Science Foundation | |
| Quaternary Research Association | |
| Natural Environment Research Council | NE / L002574/1, NE / S007458/1 |
| Leverhulme Trust | RPG- 2021-354 |
| Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst | 57044554 |
| Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft | BL 563/19–1, MA 8083/2–1 |
| Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung | |
| Academy of Finland | PAI/SIA 77180002 |
| Chinese Academy of Sciences | |
| Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico | 11220705 |
| Narodowe Centrum Nauki | 2018/31/B/ST10/02498, 2021/41/B/ST10/00060, 2019/35/O/ST10/02903, 2018/29/B/ST10/00120 |
| Akademie der Naturwissenschaften | |
| University of Latvia | AAp 2016/B041/Zd2016/AZ03 |
| Russian Science Foundation | 19-14-00102 |
| Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo | R20F0002 |
| Universität Münster |
Keywords
- Fire
- Charcoal
- palaeoenvironments
- Data analysis
- North American
- Europe
- Patagonia
- Carbon Balance
- Drought
Themes
- Climate and Environmental Change