Polar and tropical ice cores record fire activity across present and previous interglacial cycles

Fires affect the global carbon cycle through changing vegetation distribution, primary productivity, biodiversity,and atmospheric chemistry. Biomass burning caused by current human activities emits up to 50% as muchcarbon dioxide as fossil-fuel combustion and is therefore highly likely to influence future climate change. Icecores contain specific molecular markers including levoglucosan (1,6-anhydro-?-D-glucopyranose) and otherpyrochemical evidence that provides much-needed information on the role of fire in driving past climate and thepossibility of current biomass burning affecting future global climate. Woody biomass burning at temperaturesabove 300oC injects levoglucosan into smoke plumes than can disperse through the global atmosphere. Whilea percentage of levoglucosan does degrade in smoke plumes, the high concentration of levoglucosan emissionssuggests that levoglucosan is a viable tracer for biomass burning.The study of past fire activity using ice core records opens regions of the world where no paleofire datapreviously exited. Polar and low-latitude, high-altitude ice cores provide data for regions which are not repre-sented in the global charcoal database. The available temporal resolution matches that of the ice core, with thelongest temporal resolution being that of the EPICA Dome C ice core that extends back approximately eightglacial cycles. The spatial resolution of chemical markers in ice cores depends on the location of the core itself.Low-latitude ice cores primarily reflect regional climate parameters, while polar ice cores reflect a global signal.Here, we present levoglucosan flux measured across the past 600,000 years in the EPICA Dome C (75o06'S,123o21'E, 3233 masl) ice core, during the late Holocene in the Kilimanjaro (3o04.6'S; 37o21.2'E, 5893 masl)icecore, and the applicability for determining levoglucosan in the NEEM, Greenland (77o27' N; 51o3'W, 2454 masl)ice core.