Human-environmental interactions in the Arctic inferred from microfossils in Central Greenland ice

Temperatures in high latitudes are icreasing twice as fast as the global mean, which affect sensitive Arctic ecosystems. Microfossil impurities such as microcharcoal particles in surface snow on the Greenland ice sheet directly change the surface albedo, potentially contributing to accelerating climate change. Over time, these microfossil particles are incorporated into growing layers of ice thereby preserving records of past environmental changes over millennia. Recent methodological advances permit extraction of these microfossils from remote polar ice cores in sufficient numbers to achieve continuous environmental records. Such palynological analyses provide new insights into the long-term and large-scale vegetation, fire, and pollution dynamics in the Arctic region. We use pollen and spores in ice cores to infer past vegetation composition and land use, microscopic charcoal for biomass burning, and SCP …