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Tropical Western Pacific Hydrology During the Last 6,000 Years Based on Wildfire Charcoal Records From Borneo
Author(s) -
Yamamoto Masanobu,
Kikuchi Takafumi,
Sakurai Hiromichi,
Hayashi Ryoma,
Seki Osamu,
Omori Takayuki,
Sulaiman Abdullah,
Shaari Hasrizal,
Abdullah Mohd Zulhilmy,
Melling Lulie
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2021gl093832
Subject(s) - speleothem , charcoal , peat , western hemisphere warm pool , climatology , environmental science , forcing (mathematics) , dryness , tropical cyclone , atmospheric sciences , oceanography , geology , geography , el niño southern oscillation , biology , archaeology , chemistry , cave , organic chemistry , immunology
The forcing of multicentennial climate variability in the Western Pacific Warm Pool (WPWP) region is not fully understood. Here, we generated 6‐kyr‐long continuous charcoal records from five peatlands in Borneo. Every several hundred years, peaks of charcoal influx were identified in the composite record, indicating that the peatlands repeatedly experienced dry conditions and wildfires. Major fire events were identified at ∼5.4, 4.7, 4.4, 3.7, 3.2, 2.7, 2.4, 2.2, 1.7, 1.1, 0.6, and 0.3 ka. Most of these coincided with the maxima of Borneo speleothem δ 18 O and occurred in the high solar activity periods following the solar minima. This suggests that the higher solar activity decreased rainfall, increasing dryness and wildfire frequency. This result challenges the hypothesis that high solar activity intensifies atmospheric convection in the WPWP area.