A continuous record of fire covering the last 10,500 calendar years from southern Sweden — The role of climate and human activities

Olsson, Fredrik; Gaillard, Marie-José; Lemdahl, Geoffrey; Greisman, Annica; Lanos, Philippe; Marguerie, Dominique; Marcoux, Nancy; Skoglund, Peter; Wäglind, Jonas

doi:10.1016/j.palaeo.2009.07.013

Cited by 90 publications

(78 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…Studies of historical fire records (e.g. Power et al, 2008;Olsson et al, 2010) have moreover linked changes in fire activity to climatic variations before any human impact was present, illustrating the crucial role of climate on fire activity. Furthermore, increased large fire activity in Canada and Alaska during the late twentieth century has been attributed to increased drought in the area (Xiao and Zhuang, 2007).…”

Section: Lehtonen Et Al: Risk Of Large-scale Fires In Boreal Forementioning

confidence: 99%

Risk of large-scale fires in boreal forests of Finland under changing climate

Lehtonen

Venäläinen

Kämäräinen

et al. 2016

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. The target of this work was to assess the impact of projected climate change on forest-fire activity in Finland with special emphasis on large-scale fires. In addition, we were particularly interested to examine the intermodel variability of the projected change of fire danger. For this purpose, we utilized fire statistics covering the period 1996-2014 and consisting of almost 20 000 forest fires, as well as daily meteorological data from five global climate models under representative concentration pathway RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios. The model data were statistically downscaled onto a high-resolution grid using the quantilemapping method before performing the analysis. In examining the relationship between weather and fire danger, we applied the Canadian fire weather index (FWI) system. Our results suggest that the number of large forest fires may double or even triple during the present century. This would increase the risk that some of the fires could develop into real conflagrations which have become almost extinct in Finland due to active and efficient fire suppression. However, the results reveal substantial inter-model variability in the rate of the projected increase of forest-fire danger, emphasizing the large uncertainty related to the climate change signal in fire activity. We moreover showed that the majority of large fires in Finland occur within a relatively short period in May and June due to human activities and that FWI correlates poorer with the fire activity during this time of year than later in summer when lightning is a more important cause of fires.

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Section: Lehtonen Et Al: Risk Of Large-scale Fires In Boreal Forementioning

confidence: 99%

Risk of large-scale fires in boreal forests of Finland under changing climate

Lehtonen

Venäläinen

Kämäräinen

et al. 2016

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…Mellars 1976). Nevertheless, other studies show that natural climate-induced fire was probably a major factor in the forest dynamics of the Early and Mid Holocene in southern Sweden (Greisman and Gaillard 2009;Olsson et al 2010). During the last decades discussions have included the possibilities that plants could have been important for consumption during the Mesolithic in northern Europe (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This coincides with indications of increased precipitation and lowered summer temperature in southern Sweden from ca. 4700 B.C., as interpreted from charcoal data inferring decrease in forest fire intensity (Greisman and Gaillard 2009;Olsson et al 2010), as well as from stable isotope records (Hammarlund et al 2003). Wetter and colder climate may have affected the hazel populations during this phase, since a positive correlation between temperature during the flowering season and pollen accumulation rate for Corylus has been found (Nielsen et al 2010).…”

Section: Corylus Avellana (Hazelnut)mentioning

confidence: 97%

Plant subsistence and environment at the Mesolithic site Tågerup, southern Sweden: new insights on the “Nut Age”

Regnell

2011

Veget Hist Archaeobot

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Pollen was analysed from a sediment sequence collected in the close vicinity of the Mesolithic settlement Tågerup, southern Sweden. Macroremains were also retrieved from numerous samples taken at the site of the archaeological excavations of Kongemose and Ertebølle settlement phases, 6700-6000 B.C. and 5500-4900 B.C. respectively. Plants and other organic remains were well preserved in the refuse layers from the settlements embedded in the gyttja. The pollen record includes no clear indications of human impact on the vegetation during the Mesolithic. The occurrence of charcoal particles and pollen of grass and herbs associated with nutrient-rich soils are contemporaneous with the Kongemose settlement. The Ertebølle settlement phase, although characterised by considerable dwelling activities less than a hundred metres from the pollen sampling site, is scarcely seen in the pollen data. Numerous finds of crushed dogwood stones from the Kongemose phase, often partly carbonised, suggest that these stones were used for the extraction of oil. Other plants found in the Kongemose refuse layers that may have been used are apples, cherries, raspberries, acorns and rowan-berries. Based on the abundance of hazelnut shells found at the studied site and in other studies of Mesolithic sites in southern Scandinavia it is proposed that these remains may testify to an important food supply rather than just use as a supplement to animal protein. It is also hypothesised that a regional decrease in hazel populations and thus hazelnut availability at the end of the Mesolithic may have motivated the adoption of Neolithic subsistence.

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“…Ac cord ing to Olsson et al (2010) peaks of char coal re corded on sites in south ern Swe den were con trolled by the cli mate (warmer and drier phases) of the early/mid dle Ho lo cene rather than by human in duc tion. Oth ers, e.g.…”

Section: Light Ning-caused and Hu Man-in Duced For Est Firesmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…Be cause the trans port and de po si tion of char coal par ticles is a more com plex pro cess (Condera et al 2009) such a co in ci dence of char coal and bracken spores has not al ways been doc u mented. In south ern Swe den, the fire re gime in the Ho lo cene which was iden ti fied us ing a char coal method (Greisman and Gaillard 2009;Olsson et al 2010), is partly co in ci dent with the one in Po land based on bracken. However, in Swe den Pteridium is al most ab sent in phases of high fire ac tiv ity with the ex cep tion of one sam ple with an un usual frequency of spores, suggesting the location of plants just near a peat bog.…”

Section: Light Ning-caused and Hu Man-in Duced For Est Firesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lightning-Caused and Human-Induced Forest Fires as Evidenced By Pteridium Spores in Selected Quaternary Records from Poland

Bińka

Nitychoruk

2013

Studia Quaternaria

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Ab stractThe oc cur rence of Pteridium spores -the com mon fire-adapted plant -was ob served in Po land's Pleis to cene (three interglacials and nu mer ous interstadials) and Ho lo cene pol len se quences. Un til the on set of the mid dle Ho lo cene, bracken was re corded rel a tively rarely. This marks cli ma tic con di tions with spo radic wildfires, fol lowed by quick removal of the clones (or main te nance of the clones in a sup pressed state) in the sub se quent, post fire successional stages. In each inter gla cial we can also iden tify short pe ri ods (most of ten syn chro nous) of some what higher fre quency of Pteridium, in di cat ing a pos si ble in crease in nat u ral fires as an ef fect of stormy con di tions. These short pe ri ods are placed mainly within phases dom i nated by co nif er ous wood lands. The very high con tent of bracken found from a reanalysis of the long Saalian se quence at Ossówka as three reg u lar cul mi na tions just above three non-tree phases, east ern Po land is the unique ex cep tion. To ex plain this we found the close mod ern an a logue of the above phe nom e non in the Alas kan re gion, at the bound ary be tween the tun dra and the bo real zone where in a very nar row for est zone, espe cially with the con ti nen tal sig na ture, light ning-ini ti ated fires are very fre quent (the edge ef fect). Pleis to cene re cords of bracken dur ing for est pe ri ods might in di cate that thun der storms and light ning strikes were re spon si ble for its higher con tent. This is not to ex clude the pos si bil ity that inter gla cial fires were set by Palaeo lithic hu mans. How ever, it is more likely that the wildfires were uti lized and to some ex tent con trolled, es pe cially at Ossówka, where the palaeolake ex isted for a long time af ter the inter gla cial; and this surely at tracted the at ten tion of game and hu mans. Our in ves ti gations show that rare, more abun dant Pteridium in the Pleis to cene se quences can be traced through out the cor re sponding pe ri ods even at dis tant sites. This might be in di rect ev i dence of a cli ma tic pat tern that pro mote stormy con di tions and fires at that time. In the Ho lo cene, dif fer ent fac tors seem to be re spon si ble for the long-term dy nam ics in Pteridium clones. Both in Po land and in ad ja cent ar eas bracken peaked in the mid dle Ho lo cene from 8000 to 5000 BP, when this ter ri tory was oc cu pied by de cid u ous wood lands. There is agree ment that this is due to burn ing of for ests by the hunter-gath erer so ci et ies of the Late Mesolithic. How ever, in spite of in creased clear ings in the sub se quent phases bracken sub stan tially de creased in abun dance. This means first of all that fires rather than clear ings were re spon si ble for the rise in Pteridium spores in the Ho lo cene pol len se quences.Key words: bracken spores, fires, Qua ter nary, Po land IN TRO DUC TIONPteridium aquilinum is a com mon plant grow ing on every con ti nent ex cept in Arc tic/Ant arc tic re gions. For many rea sons -first of a...

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A continuous record of fire covering the last 10,500 calendar years from southern Sweden — The role of climate and human activities

Cited by 90 publications

References 70 publications

Risk of large-scale fires in boreal forests of Finland under changing climate

Risk of large-scale fires in boreal forests of Finland under changing climate

Plant subsistence and environment at the Mesolithic site Tågerup, southern Sweden: new insights on the “Nut Age”

Lightning-Caused and Human-Induced Forest Fires as Evidenced By Pteridium Spores in Selected Quaternary Records from Poland

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