Model code for reconstructing biomass burning emissions from ice core records of acetylene, ethane, and methane

Biomass burning emissions of trace gases are inferred from ice core levels of acetylene, ethane, methane and its stable isotopes over the last 1,000 years (Nicewonger et al., 2018, 2020). In Nicewonger et al. 2020 JGR-A, we attempt to reconcile the individual biomass burning records from each trace gas into a single fire history of dry matter burned over the last 1,000 years. We find that temporal trends in fire inferred from the three trace gas records are in reasonable agreement for the past millennium. However, the trace gas records do not yield a quantitatively consistent fire history even when assuming dramatic changes to the spatial location of fires and to the type of biomes through time.

This dataset includes the MATLAB scripts used to calculate biomass burning emission histories for each of the gases: acetylene, ethane, and methane. An Excel file included has the ice core methane and 13CH4 values used in this study. Please refer to the original manuscripts and datafiles located under the README tab for information on the methane data.