4.7 Article

Widespread wildfire across the Pliocene Canadian Arctic Archipelago

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Publisher

ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.palaeo.2021.110653

Keywords

Charcoal; Boreal; Reflectance; Organic petrography; Branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (brGDGTs)

Funding

  1. National Natural Science Foundation of China [41922006]
  2. National Geographic Society [9912-16, 7902-05]
  3. Chinese Academy of Sciences - President's International Fellowship Initiative [2019PC0035]
  4. W. Garfield Weston Foundation
  5. Canadian Museum of Nature
  6. Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
  7. Northern Research Supplements [239961, 362148, 312193]
  8. NSF Division of Polar Programs [1418421]
  9. Netherlands Earth System Science Center (NESSC) from the Dutch Ministry for Education, Culture and Science [NWO 024.002.001]
  10. Natural Resources Canada
  11. Directorate For Geosciences
  12. Office of Polar Programs (OPP) [1418421] Funding Source: National Science Foundation

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Research indicates that Arctic warming may lead to northward migration, changes in fire frequency, intensity, size, and season. During the Pliocene Epoch, there were boreal forests in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, with frequent wildfires in warm and wet climates.
Arctic warming is expected to accelerate northward migration of the boreal zone, altering the boreal wildfire regime, with changes in fire frequency, intensity, size, and fire season length. The closest analogue to these future high latitude climate conditions occurred during the Pliocene Epoch (2.58-5.33 Ma). Palaeoenvironmental reconstructions at four Pliocene-aged sites across the Canadian Arctic Archipelago reveal that boreal forest occurred at the southern-most site on Banks Island (74.30 degrees N), while open forest or tundra-forest ecosystems existed further north, characterized by species tolerant of low to moderate fire intensity. The climate that supported these ecosystems was much warmer and wetter than the current climate of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Charcoal was discovered in samples across all sites, suggesting that wildfire was ubiquitous within these ecosystems and climate regimes. The reflectance of the charcoal is consistent with crowning fire or a mixed fire regime on Banks Island and a surface fire regime on Meighen and Ellesmere islands. Boreal forest in southern Ontario, Canada, and open taiga are potential analogues for southern and northern Pliocene Arctic ecosystems, respectively.

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