Anneli Poska
Postdoctoral fellow
The Reading Palaeofire Database: an expanded global resource to document changes in fire regimes from sedimentary charcoal records
Author
Summary, in English
Sedimentary charcoal records are widely used to reconstruct regional changes in fire regimes through time in the geological past. Existing global compilations are not geographically comprehensive and do not provide consistent metadata for all sites. Furthermore, the age models provided for these records are not harmonised and many are based on older calibrations of the radiocarbon ages. These issues limit the use of existing compilations for research into past fire regimes. Here, we present an expanded database of charcoal records, accompanied by new age models based on recalibration of radiocarbon ages using IntCal20 and Bayesian age-modelling software. We document the structure and contents of the database, the construction of the age models, and the quality control measures applied. We also record the expansion of geographical coverage relative to previous charcoal compilations and the expansion of metadata that can be used to inform analyses. This first version of the Reading Palaeofire Database contains 1676 records (entities) from 1480 sites worldwide. The database (RPDv1b - Harrison et al., 2021) is available at 10.17864/1947.000345. © 2022 Sandy P. Harrison et al.
Department/s
- MERGE: ModElling the Regional and Global Earth system
- BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate
- Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science
Publishing year
2022
Language
English
Pages
1109-1124
Publication/Series
Earth System Science Data
Volume
14
Issue
3
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Copernicus GmbH
Topic
- Physical Geography
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1866-3508