A 750 year ice core record of past biogenic emissions from Siberian boreal forests

Abstract

Emissions from forests represent an important source of gaseous precursors of aerosols that can significantly alter the regional radiation balance. Long-term records of biogenic emissions are available for Northern America and the Amazon Basin, whereas the historical development of emissions from Siberian forests, comprising about 20% of the world's forested area, is unknown so far. Here we investigate ice core ammonium and formate records for the last 750 years, representing biogenic emissions from boreal Siberian forests in the pre-industrial era. Biogenic emissions were found to be closely related to changes in temperature following variations in solar activity. In addition, anthropogenic emissions have caused a strong increase of the ammonium . concentrations and a drop of the formate concentrations in the last 60 years. Copyright 2009 by the American Geophysical Union.