Boreal fire records in Northern Hemisphere ice cores: a review ...
Here, we review different attempts made since the early 1990s to reconstruct past forest fire activity using chemical signals recorded in ice cores extracted from the Greenland ice sheet and a few mid-northern latitude, high-elevation glaciers. We first examined the quality of various inorganic (amm...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2016
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.7892/boris.89860 http://boris.unibe.ch/89860/ |
| Summary: | Here, we review different attempts made since the early 1990s to reconstruct past forest fire activity using chemical signals recorded in ice cores extracted from the Greenland ice sheet and a few mid-northern latitude, high-elevation glaciers. We first examined the quality of various inorganic (ammonium, nitrate, potassium) and organic (black carbon, various organic carbon compounds including levoglucosan and numerous carboxylic acids) species proposed as fire proxies in ice, particularly in Greenland. We discuss limitations in their use during recent vs. pre-industrial times, atmospheric lifetimes, and the relative importance of other non-biomass-burning sources. Different high-resolution records from several Greenland drill sites and covering various timescales, including the last century and Holocene, are discussed. We explore the extent to which atmospheric transport can modulate the record of boreal fires from Canada as recorded in Greenland ice. Ammonium, organic fractions (black and organic carbon), ... |
|---|