[1] Climate is an important control on biomass burning, but the sensitivity of fire to changes in temperature and moisture balance has not been quantified. We analyze sedimentary charcoal records to show that the changes in fire regime over the past 21,000 yrs are predictable from changes in regional climates. Analyses of paleo-fire data show that fire increases monotonically with changes in temperature and peaks at intermediate moisture levels, and that temperature is quantitatively the most important driver of changes in biomass burning over the past 21,000 yrs. Given that a similar relationship between climate drivers and fire emerges from analyses of the interannual variability in biomass burning shown by remote-sensing observations of month-by-month burnt area between 1996 and 2008, our results signal a serious cause for concern in the face of continuing global warming. , et al. (2012), Predictability of biomass burning in response to climate changes, Global Biogeochem. Cycles, 26, GB4007,

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A comprehensive multisite paleoseismic archive of the late Holocene Dead Sea basin (past 2500 years) is established by constructing two age‐depth chronological models of two sedimentary sections exposed at the retreating shores of the modern Dead Sea. Two new paleoseismic study sites studied are the Ein Feshkha Nature Reserve outcrop located at the northern part of the basin and close to an active underwater transverse fault and the east Ze'elim Gully outcrop at the southern part of the basin. Age‐depth regression models are calculated for these sections based on atmospheric radiocarbon ages of short‐lived organic debris calibrated with a Bayesian model. The uncertainties on individual model ages are smaller than 100 years. The new chronological records are compared to a laminae‐counting study of the Ein Gedi core (Migowski et al., 2004) located at the central Dead Sea basin. The Ein Feshkha outcrop yielded the largest number of seismites in the studied time interval (n = 52), while lower numbers of seismites are recovered from the Ze'elim outcrop and Ein Gedi core (n = 15 and 36, respectively). The seismites show no strong dependence on the limnological‐sedimentological conditions in the particular sampling sites (they coappear in both shallow and deep water environments and in different sedimentary facies). During time intervals when the chronologies are comparable it appears that the number of seismites is significantly larger in the northern part of the basin (Ein Gedi and Ein Feshkha). Seismic quiescence intervals are apparent at all three sites from 2nd–4th century A.D. and at 500–150 B.C. at Ze'elim and Ein Gedi. Several synchronous seismites appear in all sections (termed here the intrabasin seismites (IBS)). Among them: 1927, 1293, 1202/1212, 749, 551, 419, and 33 A.D. and 31 and mid‐2nd century B.C. The recurrence time of the IBS from the 2nd century B.C. to the 14th century A.D. is ∼200 years, compared with ∼100 years for all earthquakes. On a diagram of epicentral distance versus magnitude, historic earthquakes that are correlated with IBS plot in a field of high local intensity. The farther and stronger IBS earthquakes require lower local intensities to be recorded. This study demonstrates that a painstaking effort is still needed for unraveling the seismic history of the Dead Sea basin. The results also indicate that such a study will likely be highly rewarding.

The austral westerlies strongly influence precipitation and ocean circulation in the southern temperate zone, with important consequences for cultures and ecosystems. Global climate models anticipate poleward contraction of the austral westerlies with future warming, but the available paleoclimate records that might test these models have been largely limited to South America, are not fully consistent with each other, and may be complicated by influences from other climatic factors. Here we present the first fine-interval diatom and sedimentological records from the winter rainfall region of South Africa, representing precipitation during the last 1400 yr. Inferred rainfall increased ~1400–1200 cal yr BP and most notably during the Little Ice Age with pulses centered on ~600, 530, 470, 330, 200, and 90 cal yr BP. Synchronous fluctuations in Antarctic ice core chemistry strongly suggest that these variations are linked to changes in the westerlies. Partial inconsistencies among South African and South American records warn against the simplistic application of local-scale histories to the Southern Hemisphere as a whole. Nonetheless, these findings in general do support model projections of increasing aridity in austral winter rainfall zones with future warming