Wildfire activity enhanced during phases of maximum orbital eccentricity and precessional forcing in the Early Jurassic

Abstract Fire regimes are changing due to both anthropogenic climatic drivers and vegetation management challenges, making it difficult determine how climate alone might influence wildfire activity. Earth has been subject natural-background variability throughout its past variations in Earth’s orbital parameters (Milkankovitch cycles), which provides an opportunity assess climate-only driven wildfire. Here we present a 350,000 yr long record of fossil charcoal from mid-latitude (~35°N) Jurassic sedimentary rocks. These results coupled estimates the hydrological cycle using clay mineral, palynofacies elemental analyses, lithological biogeochemical signatures. We show that fire activity strongly increased during extreme seasonal contrast (monsoonal climate), linked maximal precessional forcing (boreal summer perihelion) (21,000 hypothesize eccentricity modulation further enhances precession-forced