[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,
Traditional, pre-industrial farming was adapted to the natural environment-topography, geology, hydrology, climate, and biota. Traditional land use systems are still to be traced in Scandinavia as an "infield/outland landscape", and in Japan as a "Satoyama landscape." There are obvious similarities and differences in land use-the main difference being that pasturing of cattle and sheep has been less important in Japan. These land use systems can be traced back to early sedentary settlements 1500-2500 years ago. In both regions, traditional management almost ceased in the mid-twentieth century leading to afforestation and decreased biological diversity. Today, there is in Japan a growing movement for landscape restoration and promotion of a sustainable living countryside based on local agrarian and forestry production, local energy, tourism, etc. With this background, the so-called Satoyama Initiative has been organized and introduced as a global socio-ecological project with ecosystem services for human well-being.
Abstract. Sedimentary charcoal records are widely used to reconstruct regional changes
in fire regimes through time in the geological past. Existing global
compilations are not geographically comprehensive and do not provide
consistent metadata for all sites. Furthermore, the age models provided for
these records are not harmonised and many are based on older calibrations of
the radiocarbon ages. These issues limit the use of existing compilations
for research into past fire regimes. Here, we present an expanded database
of charcoal records, accompanied by new age models based on recalibration of
radiocarbon ages using IntCal20 and Bayesian age-modelling software. We
document the structure and contents of the database, the construction of the
age models, and the quality control measures applied. We also record the
expansion of geographical coverage relative to previous charcoal
compilations and the expansion of metadata that can be used to inform
analyses. This first version of the Reading Palaeofire Database contains
1676 records (entities) from 1480 sites worldwide. The database (RPDv1b – Harrison et al., 2021) is available at
https://doi.org/10.17864/1947.000345.
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