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Biomass burning influences global atmospheric chemistry by releasing greenhouse gases and climate-forcing aerosols. There is controversy about the magnitude and timing of Holocene changes in biomass burning emissions from millennial to centennial time scales and, in particular, on the possible impact of ancient civilizations. Here we present a 5 kyr record of fire activity proxies levoglucosan, black carbon and ammonium measured in the RECAP ice core, drilled in the coastal East Greenland and therefore affected by processes occurring in the High North Atlantic Region. Levoglucosan and ammonium fluxes show high levels from 5 to 4.5 kyr followed by an abrupt decline, possibly due to monotonic decline in Northern Hemisphere summer insolation. Levoglucosan and black carbon show an abrupt decline at 1.1 kyr BP (before 2000 AD), suggesting a decline in wildfire regime in the Icelandic territory due to the extensive land clearing caused by Viking colonizers. A minimum is reached at 0.5 kyr BP for all fire proxies, after which levoglucosan and ammonium fluxes increase again, in particular over the last 200 years. We find that the fire regime reconstructed from RECAP fluxes seems mainly related to climatic changes, however over the last millennium human activities might have had a substantial influence controlling the occurrence of fire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constraining the past sea ice variability in the Nordic Seas is critical for a comprehensive understanding of the abrupt Dansgaard- Oeschger (D-O) climate changes during the last glacial. Here we present unprecedentedly detailed sea ice proxy evidence from two Norwegian Sea sediment cores and an East Greenland ice core to resolve and constrain sea ice variations during four D-O events between 32 and 41 ka. Our independent sea ice records consistently reveal a millennial-scale variability and threshold response between an extensive seasonal sea ice cover in the Nordic Seas during cold stadials and reduced seasonal sea ice conditions during warmer interstadials. They document substantial and rapid sea ice reductions that may have happened within 250 y or less, concomitant with reinvigoration of deep convection in the Nordic Seas and the abrupt warming transitions in Greenland. Our empirical evidence thus underpins the cardinal role of rapid sea ice decline and related feedbacks to trigger abrupt and large-amplitude climate change of the glacial D-O events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although it has been demonstrated that the speed and magnitude of recent Arctic sea ice decline is unprecedented for the past 1,450 years, few records are available to provide a paleoclimate context for Arctic sea ice extent. Here we present a 120 kyr record of bromine enrichment from the RECAP ice core, coastal East Greenland, and reconstruct past sea ice conditions in the North Atlantic as far north as the entrance of the Arctic Ocean (50-85° N). Bromine enrichment has been previously employed to reconstruct first-year sea ice (FYSI) in the Canadian Arctic over the last glacial cycle. We find that during the last deglaciation, the transition from multi-year sea ice (MYSI) to FYSI started at ~ 17.6 kyr, synchronous with sea ice reductions observed in the eastern Nordic seas (Müller and Stein, 2014; Hoff et al., 2016) and with the increase of North Atlantic ocean temperature (Dokken and Jansen, 1999). FYSI reached its maximum extent at 12.4-11.8 kyr, after which open-water conditions started to dominate, as supported by sea ice records from the eastern Nordic seas and the North Icelandic shelf. Our results show that over the last 120,000 years, sea ice extent was greatest during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 2 and MIS4, with decreased levels during MIS3 and the onset of the last glacial period (late-MIS5). Sea ice extent during the last 10 kyr (Holocene/MIS1) has been less than at any time in the last 120 kyr. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atmospheric iodine causes tropospheric ozone depletion and aerosol formation, both of which have significant climate impacts, and is an essential dietary element for humans. However, the evolution of atmospheric iodine levels at decadal and centennial scales is unknown. Here, we report iodine concentrations in the RECAP ice-core (coastal East Greenland) to investigate how atmospheric iodine levels in the North Atlantic have evolved over the past 260 years (1750–2011), this being the longest record of atmospheric iodine in the Northern Hemisphere. The levels of iodine tripled from 1950 to 2010. Our results suggest that this increase is driven by anthropogenic ozone pollution and enhanced sub-ice phytoplankton production associated with the recent thinning of Arctic sea ice. Increasing atmospheric iodine has accelerated ozone loss and has considerably enhanced iodine transport and deposition to the Northern Hemisphere continents. Future climate and anthropogenic forcing may continue to amplify oceanic iodine emissions with potentially significant health and environmental impacts at global scale.