Evidence for fire in the Pliocene Arctic in response to amplified temperature

The mid-Pliocene is a valuable time interval for investigating equilibrium climate at current atmospheric CO.sub.2 concentrations because atmospheric CO.sub.2 concentrations are thought to have been comparable to the current day and yet the climate and distribution of ecosystems were quite different...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Climate of the past 2019-06, Vol.15 (3), p.1063-1081
Main Authors: Fletcher, Tamara L, Warden, Lisa, Sinninghe Damste, Jaap S, Brown, Kendrick J, Rybczynski, Natalia, Gosse, John C, Ballantyne, Ashley P
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amplification
Analysis
Arctic climates
Atmospheric models
Atmospheric temperature
Boreal ecosystems
Boreal forests
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide atmospheric concentrations
Carbon dioxide concentration
Charcoal
Climate
Ecosystems
Environment models
Fens
Fires
Forecasts and trends
Forests
Glycerol
Interactions
Lipids
Paleoclimate
Paleoclimatology
Peat
Pliocene
Precipitation
Summer
Summer precipitation
Summer temperatures
Temperature
Temperature effects
Vegetation
Wildfires
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Summary:The mid-Pliocene is a valuable time interval for investigating equilibrium climate at current atmospheric CO.sub.2 concentrations because atmospheric CO.sub.2 concentrations are thought to have been comparable to the current day and yet the climate and distribution of ecosystems were quite different. One intriguing, but not fully understood, feature of the early to mid-Pliocene climate is the amplified Arctic temperature response and its impact on Arctic ecosystems. Only the most recent models appear to correctly estimate the degree of warming in the Pliocene Arctic and validation of the currently proposed feedbacks is limited by scarce terrestrial records of climate and environment. Here we reconstruct the summer temperature and fire regime from a subfossil fen-peat deposit on west-central Ellesmere Island, Canada, that has been chronologically constrained using cosmogenic nuclide burial dating to 3.9+1.5/-0.5 Ma.
ISSN:1814-9332
1814-9324
1814-9332
DOI:10.5194/cp-15-1063-2019