Abrupt Holocene climate change and potential response to solar forcing in western Canada

Gavin, Daniel G.; Henderson, Andrew C.G.; Westover, Karlyn S.; Fritz, Sherilyn C.; Walker, Ian R.; Leng, Melanie J.; Hu, Feng Sheng

doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2011.03.003

Cited by 52 publications

(59 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…2 A and B). Significance was estimated by block bootstrap resampling (60). There are too few fires in the observational record to estimate regional FF directly (i.e., from the time between consecutive fires at a particular location).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent burning of boreal forests exceeds fire regime limits of the past 10,000 years

Kelly¹,

Chipman

Higuera

et al. 2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Wildfire activity in boreal forests is anticipated to increase dramatically, with far-reaching ecological and socioeconomic consequences. Paleorecords are indispensible for elucidating boreal fire regime dynamics under changing climate, because fire return intervals and successional cycles in these ecosystems occur over decadal to centennial timescales. We present charcoal records from 14 lakes in the Yukon Flats of interior Alaska, one of the most flammable ecoregions of the boreal forest biome, to infer causes and consequences of fire regime change over the past 10,000 y. Strong correspondence between charcoal-inferred and observational fire records shows the fidelity of sedimentary charcoal records as archives of past fire regimes. Fire frequency and area burned increased ∼6,000–3,000 y ago, probably as a result of elevated landscape flammability associated with increased Picea mariana in the regional vegetation. During the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA; ∼1,000–500 cal B.P.), the period most similar to recent decades, warm and dry climatic conditions resulted in peak biomass burning, but severe fires favored less-flammable deciduous vegetation, such that fire frequency remained relatively stationary. These results suggest that boreal forests can sustain high-severity fire regimes for centuries under warm and dry conditions, with vegetation feedbacks modulating climate–fire linkages. The apparent limit to MCA burning has been surpassed by the regional fire regime of recent decades, which is characterized by exceptionally high fire frequency and biomass burning. This extreme combination suggests a transition to a unique regime of unprecedented fire activity. However, vegetation dynamics similar to feedbacks that occurred during the MCA may stabilize the fire regime, despite additional warming.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent burning of boreal forests exceeds fire regime limits of the past 10,000 years

Kelly¹,

Chipman

Higuera

et al. 2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Self Cite

345

333

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“…Deglaciation, alpine glacial advances, Younger Dryas cooling and rapid early Holocene temperature changes occurred over this period (Pellatt et al, 2002). Palynological and paleo-environmental climatic reconstructions suggest the Holocene climate of southern British Columbia can be divided into three distinct zones consisting of a cold and dry deglacial period, early Holocene dry period and a cold, wet middle to late Holocene (Alley, 1976;Mathews and Heusser, 1981;Pellatt et al, 2002;Walker and Pellatt, 2003;Hallett and Hills, 2006;Galloway et al, 2011;Gavin et al, 2011). In Cleland Lake sediment, the same Holocene climatic pattern is expressed as variations in pigment concentrations, which occurred at similar times.…”

Section: Regional Comparison During the Deglaciation And Early Holocenementioning

confidence: 99%

“…G. Annual precipitation anomaly from central boreal Canada (50-70°N, 80-120°W, Viau et al, 2002). H. Percent biogenic silica record from Eleanor Lake (Gavin et al, 2011). I.…”

Section: Regional Comparison During the Deglaciation And Early Holocenementioning

confidence: 99%

“…I. Combined chironomid-inferred summer temperature anomalies from four sites; Frozen Lake (Rosenberg et al, 2004), North Crater Lake and Lake-of-the-Woods (Palmer et al, 2002), and Windy Lake (Chase et al, 2008) (after Gavin et al, 2011 This colder, more ice-covered lake experienced a warm dry period between 8500 and 5000 cal yr BP, contrasting with the other regional records (Gavin et al, 2011). At Cleland Lake, this cooler, wet period is concurrent with an increase in diatom abundances as inferred from pigments and Si/Ti ratios because the local micro-climate shifted from an arid one, to a wetter one, associated with increased fluvial input to the lake, greater water depth, and thus a higher nutrient flux, supporting a larger diatom community.…”

Section: Regional Comparison During the Deglaciation And Early Holocenementioning

confidence: 99%

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Reconstruction of late Quaternary paleohydrologic Conditions in southeastern British Columbia using visible derivative spectroscopy of Cleland Lake Sediment

et al. 2015

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Visible derivative spectroscopy (VDS) analysis of sediment from Cleland Lake, Southeastern British Columbia provides a reconstruction of paleolimnological productivity and hydrologic change during the past 14,000 calibrated 14C years before present (cal yr BP). The first five principal components (PC) of the VDS data explain 97% of the variance in the VDS data set. Four PCs correlate with standard reflectance derivative spectra for diatom, dinoflagellate algae, and cyanophyte pigments that record ecological change, while two PCs are paleohydrologic indicators. Dinoflagellate algae are predominant from 11,600 to 8600 cal yr BP then decrease to low levels after ~ 8500 cal yr BP. PCs 3–5 represent variations in cyanophyte abundance and exhibit peaks from 14,000 to 11,600, 14,000 to 9500, and 6100 to 5400 cal yr BP, respectively. Conditions shifted toward favoring diatoms around 9400 and lasted until 170 cal yr BP. Higher dinoflagellate-related pigment concentrations suggest a lower lake level from 11,600 to 8600 cal yr BP, followed by higher water levels and wetter conditions after 8500 cal yr BP. We propose that drier conditions transitioning from the late glacial into the Holocene were caused by summer insolation-driven, non-linear feedbacks between the northern hemisphere subtropical high-pressure systems, vegetation, and soil moisture.

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“…During the Holocene, the link between solar activity and climate variability has been testified by the co-variation of high-frequency (decadal to centennial-scale) (Neff et al, 2001;Fleitmann et al, 2003;Wang et al, 2005) or low-frequency (millennial-scale) (Marchitto et al, 2010;Gavin et al, 2011;Schmidt et al, 2012) variability of cosmogenic nuclide proxies and geologic records. When investigating the high-frequency signals, the chronologies of geologic records were often tuned to the solar proxies to obtain a better correlation (Neff et al, 2001;Fleitmann et al, 2003;Wang et al, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cyclic changes of Asian monsoon intensity during the early mid-Holocene from annually-laminated stalagmites, central China

Liu

Wang

Cheng

et al. 2015

Quaternary Science Reviews

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Abrupt Holocene climate change and potential response to solar forcing in western Canada

Cited by 52 publications

References 62 publications

Recent burning of boreal forests exceeds fire regime limits of the past 10,000 years

Recent burning of boreal forests exceeds fire regime limits of the past 10,000 years

Reconstruction of late Quaternary paleohydrologic Conditions in southeastern British Columbia using visible derivative spectroscopy of Cleland Lake Sediment

Cyclic changes of Asian monsoon intensity during the early mid-Holocene from annually-laminated stalagmites, central China

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