Dan Charman

Latitudinal limits to the predicted increase of the peatland carbon sink with warming

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Date: 10-09-2018

DOI: 10.1038/S41558-018-0271-1

Was there a '4.2ka event' in Great Britain and Ireland? Evidence from the peatland record

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 2014

DOI: 10.1016/J.QUASCIREV.2013.10.024

Paleohydrological Records from Peat Profiles and Speleothems in Sutherland, Northwest Scotland

Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)

Date: 03-2001

DOI: 10.1006/QRES.2000.2190

Abstract: Paleohydrological changes during the late Holocene are inferred from humification, testate amoebae, and pollen evidence from three blanket peat profiles in northwest Scotland. Replicate peat humification records from the Traligill basin share the same patterns of change for a 600-yr period of overlap between 1800 and 2400 cal yr B.P. The shared patterns, inferred from s les with a resolution of 5–13 yr, represent basinwide hydrological changes. In a nearby, but hydrologically separate, area with caves beneath peat, the luminescence emission wavelength measured in two speleothem s les correlated with the humification record in the overlying peat. This correlation implies that speleothem luminescence emission wavelength depends primarily on decay rates in the soils from which drip waters are derived, as long as there is no major change in soil or vegetation. The peat and speleothem records from the cave site further correlate with the peat records from the Traligill basin. Taken together, the records thus represent a regional climatic signal. Peaks in surface wetness replicated in two or more records occur at ca. 2300, 2090, 2030, 1820, 1600, and 1440 cal yr B.P. Further peaks occur at 800, 570, and 115 cal yr B.P. in the humification and stalagmite records that extend to the present day. Correlative changes have been observed, not only in other peat records from Scotland but also in ice accumulation at GISP2. These further correlations imply that precipitation regimes in Scotland and Greenland were in phase during the late Holocene.

Climate-driven expansion of blanket bogs in Britain during the Holocene

Publisher: Copernicus GmbH

Date: 28-01-2016

DOI: 10.5194/CP-12-129-2016

Abstract: Abstract. Blanket bog occupies approximately 6 % of the area of the UK today. The Holocene expansion of this hyperoceanic biome has previously been explained as a consequence of Neolithic forest clearance. However, the present distribution of blanket bog in Great Britain can be predicted accurately with a simple model (PeatStash) based on summer temperature and moisture index thresholds, and the same model correctly predicts the highly disjunct distribution of blanket bog worldwide. This finding suggests that climate, rather than land-use history, controls blanket-bog distribution in the UK and everywhere else. We set out to test this hypothesis for blanket bogs in the UK using bioclimate envelope modelling compared with a database of peat initiation age estimates. We used both pollen-based reconstructions and climate model simulations of climate changes between the mid-Holocene (6000 yr BP, 6 ka) and modern climate to drive PeatStash and predict areas of blanket bog. We compiled data on the timing of blanket-bog initiation, based on 228 age determinations at sites where peat directly overlies mineral soil. The model predicts that large areas of northern Britain would have had blanket bog by 6000 yr BP, and the area suitable for peat growth extended to the south after this time. A similar pattern is shown by the basal peat ages and new blanket bog appeared over a larger area during the late Holocene, the greatest expansion being in Ireland, Wales, and southwest England, as the model predicts. The expansion was driven by a summer cooling of about 2 °C, shown by both pollen-based reconstructions and climate models. The data show early Holocene (pre-Neolithic) blanket-bog initiation at over half of the sites in the core areas of Scotland and northern England. The temporal patterns and concurrence of the bioclimate model predictions and initiation data suggest that climate change provides a parsimonious explanation for the early Holocene distribution and later expansion of blanket bogs in the UK, and it is not necessary to invoke anthropogenic activity as a driver of this major landscape change.

Stalagmite luminescence and peat humification records of palaeomoisture for the last 2500 years

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 1999

DOI: 10.1016/S0012-821X(98)00258-1

The 5.2 ka climate event: Evidence from stable isotope and multi-proxy palaeoecological peatland records in Ireland

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 09-2015

DOI: 10.1016/J.QUASCIREV.2015.07.026

Expert assessment of future vulnerability of the global peatland carbon sink

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Date: 07-12-2020

DOI: 10.1038/S41558-020-00944-0

Assessing recent trends in high-latitude Southern Hemisphere surface climate

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Date: 28-09-2016

DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE3103

Author Correction: Expert assessment of future vulnerability of the global peatland carbon sink

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Date: 21-01-2021

DOI: 10.1038/S41558-021-00991-1

University Of Exeter

Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

View Organisation

Linkage Projects - Grant ID: LP170100544

Start Date: 06-2019

End Date: 06-2019

Amount: $562,059.00

Funder: Australian Research Council

Special Research Initiatives - Grant ID: SR200100005

Start Date: 06-2021

End Date: 06-2030

Amount: $36,000,000.00

Funder: Australian Research Council