What could have caused pre-industrial biomass burning emissions to exceed current rates?
Recent studies based on trace gas mixing ratios in ice cores and charcoal data indicate that biomass burning emissions over the past millennium exceeded contemporary emissions by up to a factor of 4 for certain time periods. This is surprising because various sources of biomass burning are linked wi...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:2ee678ab17d5471b9794f96ca1e4e9ed 2023-05-15T16:39:00+02:00 What could have caused pre-industrial biomass burning emissions to exceed current rates? G. R. van der Werf W. Peters T. T. van Leeuwen L. Giglio 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-9-289-2013 https://doaj.org/article/2ee678ab17d5471b9794f96ca1e4e9ed EN eng Copernicus Publications http://www.clim-past.net/9/289/2013/cp-9-289-2013.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/1814-9324 https://doaj.org/toc/1814-9332 doi:10.5194/cp-9-289-2013 1814-9324 1814-9332 https://doaj.org/article/2ee678ab17d5471b9794f96ca1e4e9ed Climate of the Past, Vol 9, Iss 1, Pp 289-306 (2013) Environmental pollution TD172-193.5 Environmental protection TD169-171.8 Environmental sciences GE1-350 article 2013 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-9-289-2013 2022-12-31T07:27:21Z Recent studies based on trace gas mixing ratios in ice cores and charcoal data indicate that biomass burning emissions over the past millennium exceeded contemporary emissions by up to a factor of 4 for certain time periods. This is surprising because various sources of biomass burning are linked with population density, which has increased over the past centuries. We have analysed how emissions from several landscape biomass burning sources could have fluctuated to yield emissions that are in correspondence with recent results based on ice core mixing ratios of carbon monoxide (CO) and its isotopic signature measured at South Pole station (SPO). Based on estimates of contemporary landscape fire emissions and the TM5 chemical transport model driven by present-day atmospheric transport and OH concentrations, we found that CO mixing ratios at SPO are more sensitive to emissions from South America and Australia than from Africa, and are relatively insensitive to emissions from the Northern Hemisphere. We then explored how various landscape biomass burning sources may have varied over the past centuries and what the resulting emissions and corresponding CO mixing ratio at SPO would be, using population density variations to reconstruct sources driven by humans (e.g., fuelwood burning) and a new model to relate savanna emissions to changes in fire return times. We found that to match the observed ice core CO data, all savannas in the Southern Hemisphere had to burn annually, or bi-annually in combination with deforestation and slash and burn agriculture exceeding current levels, despite much lower population densities and lack of machinery to aid the deforestation process. While possible, these scenarios are unlikely and in conflict with current literature. However, we do show the large potential for increased emissions from savannas in a pre-industrial world. This is mainly because in the past, fuel beds were probably less fragmented compared to the current situation; satellite data indicates that the majority of ... Article in Journal/Newspaper ice core South pole Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles South Pole Climate of the Past 9 1 289 306 |
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Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
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English |
topic |
Environmental pollution TD172-193.5 Environmental protection TD169-171.8 Environmental sciences GE1-350 |
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Environmental pollution TD172-193.5 Environmental protection TD169-171.8 Environmental sciences GE1-350 G. R. van der Werf W. Peters T. T. van Leeuwen L. Giglio What could have caused pre-industrial biomass burning emissions to exceed current rates? |
topic_facet |
Environmental pollution TD172-193.5 Environmental protection TD169-171.8 Environmental sciences GE1-350 |
description |
Recent studies based on trace gas mixing ratios in ice cores and charcoal data indicate that biomass burning emissions over the past millennium exceeded contemporary emissions by up to a factor of 4 for certain time periods. This is surprising because various sources of biomass burning are linked with population density, which has increased over the past centuries. We have analysed how emissions from several landscape biomass burning sources could have fluctuated to yield emissions that are in correspondence with recent results based on ice core mixing ratios of carbon monoxide (CO) and its isotopic signature measured at South Pole station (SPO). Based on estimates of contemporary landscape fire emissions and the TM5 chemical transport model driven by present-day atmospheric transport and OH concentrations, we found that CO mixing ratios at SPO are more sensitive to emissions from South America and Australia than from Africa, and are relatively insensitive to emissions from the Northern Hemisphere. We then explored how various landscape biomass burning sources may have varied over the past centuries and what the resulting emissions and corresponding CO mixing ratio at SPO would be, using population density variations to reconstruct sources driven by humans (e.g., fuelwood burning) and a new model to relate savanna emissions to changes in fire return times. We found that to match the observed ice core CO data, all savannas in the Southern Hemisphere had to burn annually, or bi-annually in combination with deforestation and slash and burn agriculture exceeding current levels, despite much lower population densities and lack of machinery to aid the deforestation process. While possible, these scenarios are unlikely and in conflict with current literature. However, we do show the large potential for increased emissions from savannas in a pre-industrial world. This is mainly because in the past, fuel beds were probably less fragmented compared to the current situation; satellite data indicates that the majority of ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
G. R. van der Werf W. Peters T. T. van Leeuwen L. Giglio |
author_facet |
G. R. van der Werf W. Peters T. T. van Leeuwen L. Giglio |
author_sort |
G. R. van der Werf |
title |
What could have caused pre-industrial biomass burning emissions to exceed current rates? |
title_short |
What could have caused pre-industrial biomass burning emissions to exceed current rates? |
title_full |
What could have caused pre-industrial biomass burning emissions to exceed current rates? |
title_fullStr |
What could have caused pre-industrial biomass burning emissions to exceed current rates? |
title_full_unstemmed |
What could have caused pre-industrial biomass burning emissions to exceed current rates? |
title_sort |
what could have caused pre-industrial biomass burning emissions to exceed current rates? |
publisher |
Copernicus Publications |
publishDate |
2013 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-9-289-2013 https://doaj.org/article/2ee678ab17d5471b9794f96ca1e4e9ed |
geographic |
South Pole |
geographic_facet |
South Pole |
genre |
ice core South pole |
genre_facet |
ice core South pole |
op_source |
Climate of the Past, Vol 9, Iss 1, Pp 289-306 (2013) |
op_relation |
http://www.clim-past.net/9/289/2013/cp-9-289-2013.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/1814-9324 https://doaj.org/toc/1814-9332 doi:10.5194/cp-9-289-2013 1814-9324 1814-9332 https://doaj.org/article/2ee678ab17d5471b9794f96ca1e4e9ed |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-9-289-2013 |
container_title |
Climate of the Past |
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9 |
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289 |
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