Hydroclimate and fire paleorecords across the southern Rockies and Colorado Plateau over the common era
Links
- More information: Publisher Index Page
- Download citation as: RIS | Dublin Core
Abstract
The southwestern US has been experiencing a severe drought and increased fire activity over the past two decades, affecting people’s health, homes, and businesses. Many individual fires occurring in the Southwest are the most severe in recorded history both in terms of dollars of damages as well as in fire extent. It is essential to be able to place the present drought and fires into the context of the current changing climate as well as in the framework of climate variability and human activity over centennial to millennial timescales. Dendrochronology can determine both the seasonality of fires as well as changes in precipitation. Charcoal, pollen, and the biomarkers levoglucosan, mannosan, and galactosan can help determine fire activity and the type of burned vegetation. People have controlled and utilized fire in the southwestern US for thousands of years. While proxies cannot yet determine if people ignited a specific fire, fecal sterols can determine if people were within an individual watershed. Here, we examine the strengths and weaknesses of using high-resolution tree-ring data in conjunction with biomarkers in ice and lake cores from the southwestern US to study interactions between changes in hydroclimate, fires, and human activity.
Suggested Citation
Kehrwald, N.M., and Brice, R.L., 2023, Hydroclimate and fire paleorecords across the southern Rockies and Colorado Plateau over the common era, in Proceedings of the 89th annual western snow conference, p. 41-45.
| Publication type | Conference Paper |
|---|---|
| Publication Subtype | Conference Paper |
| Title | Hydroclimate and fire paleorecords across the southern Rockies and Colorado Plateau over the common era |
| Year Published | 2023 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Western Snow Conference |
| Contributing office(s) | Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center |
| Description | 5 p. |
| Larger Work Type | Book |
| Larger Work Subtype | Conference publication |
| Larger Work Title | Proceedings of the 89th annual western snow conference |
| First page | 41 |
| Last page | 45 |