REAL

Resilience in East African Landscapes

  • Welcome
  • About us
  • People
    • Advisory Board
    • Researchers
      • David Anderson
      • Franziska Bedorf
      • Michael Bollig
      • Lowe Borjeson
      • Colin Courtney Mustaphi
      • Benoit Hazard
      • Paul Lane
      • Rob Marchant
      • Dirk Verschuren
      • Mats Widgren
    • Early Stage Researchers
      • Christine Adongo
      • Maxmillian Chuhila
      • Chris de Bont
      • Aynalem Degefa
      • Esther Githumbi
      • Marie Gravesen
      • Rebecca Kariuki
      • Eric Kioko
      • Nik Petek
      • Annemiek Pas Schrijver
      • Anna Shoemaker
      • Geert van der Plas
    • Associate Partners
  • Projects
  • News
    • REAL News
    • Conferences and workshops
    • Training
    • Fieldwork
    • Outreach
  • Resources
    • Cartography and Geospatial
      • Maps and Data
      • GIS Tutorials and Resources
    • Links
    • Research Permits
  • Publications
    • REAL Publications
    • Laboratory Protocols
    • Lexicon
    • Library Archive
    • Palaeo- Glossary
  • Contact us
  • ARCC Project 2017-2021
    • ARCC project overview
    • ARCC blog
  • Annemiek Pas Publications
  • BSX

Reconstructions of biomass burning

from sediment charcoal records to improve data-model comparisons

New publication: Marlon, J. R., Kelly, R., Daniau, A.-L., Vannière, B., Power, M. J., Bartlein, P., Higuera, P., Blarquez, O., Brewer, S., Brücher, T., Feurdean, A., Gil-Romera, G., Iglesias, V., Maezumi, S. Y., Magi, B., Mustaphi, C. J. C., and Zhihai, T.: Reconstructions of biomass burning from sediment charcoal records to improve data-model comparisons, Biogeosciences Discussions., 12, 18571-18623, doi:10.5194/bgd-12-18571-2015, 2015.

 GPWG_2_RING_CHART-01

Abstract. The location, timing, spatial extent, and frequency of wildfires are changing rapidly in many parts of the world, producing substantial impacts on ecosystems, people, and potentially climate. Paleofire records based on charcoal accumulation in sediments enable modern changes in biomass burning to be considered in their long-term context. Paleofire records also provide insights into the causes and impacts of past wildfires and emissions when analyzed in conjunction with other paleoenvironmental data and with fire models. Here we present new 1000 year and 22 000 year trends and gridded biomass burning reconstructions based on the Global Charcoal Database version 3, which includes 736 charcoal records (57 more than in version 2). The new gridded reconstructions reveal the spatial patterns underlying the temporal trends in the data, allowing insights into likely controls on biomass burning at regional to global scales. In the most recent few decades, biomass burning has sharply increased in both hemispheres, but especially in the north, where charcoal fluxes are now higher than at any other time during the past 22 000 {years}. We also discuss methodological issues relevant to data-model comparisons, and identify areas for future research. Spatially gridded versions of the global dataset from GCDv3 are provided to facilitate comparison with and validation of global fire simulations.

 

 

General objectives

In the past decade, the Global Paleofire Working Group (GPWG) developed and analysed fire history records using the Global Charcoal Database (GCD), which advanced our understanding of the controls and impacts of fire in the Earth system on a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. The GPWG2 will meet the growing needs of interdisciplinary fire scientists and practitioners by developing research projects, in collaboration with stakeholders, that employ diverse data sources, a new open-access database, statistical tools, and state-of-the-art models to address questions about fire-regime variations and their feedbacks on species, ecosystems, and climate.

 

GPWG2 activities are organized into three Focus Groups (FG) and four Crosscutting Initiatives (CI), including a geographical challenge and early carrier researcher (ECR) project.

Focus Groups form the basis of the GPWG2 thematic research priorities:

  1. Fire baselines by biome
  2. Fire risk & management
  3. Fire & biodiversity conservation

Crosscutting Initiatives represent the background activities of the GPWG and serve as the strategic instruments of the Focus Groups:

  1. Asian & Africa paleofire challenge: an outreach and research initiative to support capacity building and research in these regions;
  2. Synthesis & database development;
  3. Paleofire data-model integration and links with other databases;
  4. The modern Global Charcoal Database (mGCD), an innovative project to develop a “bottom up” approach to fire proxy calibration, launched during the last GPWG workshop (Harvard Forest, October 2015).

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • About us
  • People
  • Projects
  • Training
  • Resources
  • Contacts

Site information

REAL is a Marie Curie Actions InnovativeTraining Network (ITN), funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme.

Find us on Facebook:

Find us on Facebook:

Coordinating partner

Prof. Paul Lane
Department of Archaeology and Ancient History,
Uppsala University, and
Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge

Copyright © 2023

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.