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Permafrost peatlands are vulnerable to rapid structural changes under climatic warming, including vertical collapse. Peatland water budgets, and therefore peat hydraulic properties, are important determinants of vegetation and carbon fluxes. Measurements of hydraulic properties exist for only a limited number of permafrost peatland locations, primarily concentrated in North America. The impacts of thaw‐induced collapse upon properties such as horizontal saturated hydraulic conductivity (Kh), and thus lateral drainage, remain poorly understood. We made laboratory determinations of Kh from 82 peat samples from a degrading Swedish palsa mire. We fitted a linear mixed‐effects model (LMM) to establish the controls on Kh, which declined strongly with increasing depth, humification and dry bulk density. Depth exerted the strongest control on Kh in our LMM, which demonstrated strong predictive performance (r2 = 0.605). Humification and dry bulk density were influential predictors, but the high collinearity of these two variables meant only one could be included reliably in our LMM. Surprisingly, peat Kh did not differ significantly between desiccating and collapsed palsas. We compared our site‐specific LMM to an existing, multi‐site model, fitted primarily to boreal and temperate peatlands. The multi‐site model made less skillful predictions (r2 = 0.528) than our site‐specific model, possibly due to latitudinal differences in peat compaction, floristic composition and climate. Nonetheless, low bias means the multi‐site model may still be useful for estimating peat Kh at high latitudes. Permafrost peatlands remain underrepresented in multi‐site models of peat hydraulic properties, and measurements such as ours could be used to improve future iterations. Key Points: Depth and humification are important controls for horizontal saturated hydraulic conductivity in a degrading Swedish palsa complexPeat hydraulic properties did not significantly differ between desiccating and collapsed areas of the palsa complexAn existing model, trained on lower‐latitude peatlands, predicted horizontal saturated hydraulic conductivity adequately, with low bias [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Northern peatlands store globally-important amounts of carbon in the form of partly decomposed plant detritus. Drying associated with climate and land-use change may lead to increased fire frequency and severity in peatlands and the rapid loss of carbon to the atmosphere. However, our understanding of the patterns and drivers of peatland burning on an appropriate decadal to millennial timescale relies heavily on individual site-based reconstructions. For the first time, we synthesise peatland macrocharcoal records from across North America, Europe, and Patagonia to reveal regional variation in peatland burning during the Holocene. We used an existing database of proximal sedimentary charcoal to represent regional burning trends in the wider landscape for each region. Long-term trends in peatland burning appear to be largely climate driven, with human activities likely having an increasing influence in the late Holocene. Warmer conditions during the Holocene Thermal Maximum (∼9–6 cal. ka BP) were associated with greater peatland burning in North America's Atlantic coast, southern Scandinavia and the Baltics, and Patagonia. Since the Little Ice Age, peatland burning has declined across North America and in some areas of Europe. This decline is mirrored by a decrease in wider landscape burning in some, but not all sub-regions, linked to fire-suppression policies, and landscape fragmentation caused by agricultural expansion. Peatlands demonstrate lower susceptibility to burning than the wider landscape in several instances, probably because of autogenic processes that maintain high levels of near-surface wetness even during drought. Nonetheless, widespread drying and degradation of peatlands, particularly in Europe, has likely increased their vulnerability to burning in recent centuries. Consequently, peatland restoration efforts are important to mitigate the risk of peatland fire under a changing climate. Finally, we make recommendations for future research to improve our understanding of the controls on peatland fires. • We reconstruct peatland burning trends at mid-to high-latitudes for the Holocene. • Variation in climate, human activity and peatland processes influences burning. • Peatlands demonstrate lower susceptibility to burning than the wider landscape. • We outline the steps needed to better understand the drivers of peatland fire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Detrital zircon studies are providing new insights on the evolution of sedimentary basins but the role of sedimentary recycling remains largely undefined. In a broad region of northwestern North America, this contribution traces the pathway of detrital zircon sand grains from Proterozoic sandstones through Phanerozoic strata and argues for multi-stage sedimentary recycling over more than a billion years. As a test of our hypothesis, integrated palynology and detrital zircon provenance provides clear evidence for erosion of Carboniferous strata in the northern Cordillera as a sediment source for Upper Cretaceous strata. Our results help to calibrate Earth's sedimentary cycle by showing that recycling dominates sedimentary provenance for the refractory mineral zircon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Palsas and peat plateaus are climatically sensitive landforms in permafrost peatlands. Climate envelope models have previously related palsa/peat plateau distributions in Europe to modern climate, but similar bioclimatic modelling has not been attempted for North America. Recent climate change has rendered many palsas/peat plateaus in this region, and their valuable carbon stores, vulnerable. We fitted a binary logistic regression model to predict palsa/peat plateau presence for North America by relating the distribution of 352 extant landforms to gridded modern climate data. Our model accurately classified 85.3% of grid cells that contain observed palsas/peat plateaus and 77.1% of grid cells without observed palsas/peat plateaus. The model indicates that modern North American palsas/peat plateaus are supported by cold, dry climates with large seasonal temperature ranges and mild growing seasons. We used palaeoclimate simulations from a general circulation model to simulate Holocene distributions of palsas/peat plateaus at 500-year intervals. We constrained these outputs with timings of peat initiation, deglaciation, and postglacial drainage across the continent. Our palaeoclimate simulations indicate that this climate envelope remained stationary in western North America throughout the Holocene, but further east it migrated northwards during 11.5–6.0 ka BP. However, palsa extents in eastern North America were restricted from following this moving climate envelope by late deglaciation, drainage and peat initiation. We validated our Holocene simulations against available palaeoecological records and whilst they agree that permafrost peatlands aggraded earliest in western North America, our simulations contest previous suggestions that late permafrost aggradation in central Canada was climatically-driven. • North American palsas and peat plateaus exist within a cold, dry climate envelope. • This climate envelope has been stationary in western North America since 11.5 ka BP. • In the east of the continent the climate envelope moved northwards until 6.0 ka BP. • Landform development limited by non-climatic constraints such as peat initiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]