The Anthropocene Review

North American wildfire management teams routinely assess burned area on site during firefighting campaigns; meanwhile, satellite observations provide systematic and global burned-area data. Here we compare satellite and ground-based daily burned area for wildfire events for selected large fires across North America in 2007 on daily timescales. In a sample of 26 fires across North America, we found the Global Fire Emissions Database Version 4 (GFED4) estimated about 80% of the burned area logged in ground-based Incident Status Summary (ICS-209) over 8-day analysis windows. Linear regression analysis found a slope between GFED and ICS-209 of 0.67 (with R = 0.96). The agreement between these data sets was found to degrade at short timescales (from R = 0.81 for 4-day to R = 0.55 for 2-day). Furthermore, during large burning days (> 3000 ha) GFED4 typically estimates half of the burned area logged in the ICS-209 estimates.

I argue that Earth System science – a recent paradigm shift in the earth and life sciences (Hamilton C and Grinevald J (2015) Was the Anthropocene anticipated? The Anthropocene Review 2(1): 59–72) – named the Anthropocene as the very recent rupture in Earth history arising from the impact of human activity on the Earth System as a whole. Many have mistakenly treated the new concept of the Earth System as if it were equivalent to ‘the landscape’, ‘ecosystems’ or ‘the environment’. The new paradigm of Earth System science is erroneously understood as no more than a variation or development of established ecological sciences. Various attempts to invent new starting dates for the new epoch are based on these misconceptions, as are a number of arguments deployed to reject the Anthropocene altogether. In this context I consider the early Anthropocene hypothesis, three readings of the Anthropocene as instances of ecosystem change, and the notion of the ‘good Anthropocene’. Using this frame I also assess the arguments of those who do not accept the idea of the new epoch. I defend the view that disciplines other than Earth System science distort the idea of the Anthropocene when they read it through their own lenses.

Fire-centred studies have recently been highlighted as powerful avenues for investigation of energy flows and relations between humans, materials, environments and other species. The aim in this paper is to evaluate this potential first by reviewing the diverse theories and methods that can be applied to investigate the ecological and social significance of anthropogenic fire, and second by applying these to new and existing data sets in archaeology. This paper examines how fire-centred approaches can inform on one of the most significant step-changes in human lifeways and inter-relations with environment and other species – the transition from mobile hunting-gathering to more sedentary agriculture in a key heartland of change, the Zagros region of Iraq and Iran, c. 12,000–8,000 BP. In the review and case studies multiple links are investigated between human fire use and environment, ecology, energy use, technology, the built environment, health, social roles and relations, cultural practices and catastrophic events.

We review the approaches for estimating biomass burning from ice-cores and consider the challenges and assumptions in their application. In particular, we consider the potential of biomarker proxies for biomass burning, hitherto not widely applied to glacial ice archives. We also review the available records of biomass burning in ice-cores and consider how variations in fire regimes have been related to atmospheric and land-use changes. Finally, we suggest that future developments in ice-core science should aim to combine multiple biomarkers with other records (black carbon, charcoal) and models to discern the types of material being burnt (C₃ versus C₄ plants, angiosperms, gymnosperms, peat fires, etc.) and to improve constraints on source areas of biomass burning. An ultimate goal is to compare the biomass burning record from ice-cores with hindcasts from models to project how future climate change will influence biomass burning and, inversely, how fire will affect climate.

In response to Clive Hamilton’s claim that the only acceptable definition of the Anthropocene must be based on Earth System Science (ESS) as a new paradigm, I suggest, from my personal perspective, that ESS as a new paradigm differs significantly from its 20th century predecessors in the Earth Sciences by incorporating rather than rejecting previous, partial syntheses of Earth System function. More crucial to its emergence as a new paradigm are its future orientation and the incorporation of human activities as an integral component. Moreover, non-scientific framing of the concept of the Anthropocene has already become so widespread within the humanities and social sciences that abandoning it outside its ESS connotation is now unrealistic.