Pyrocene

English

Etymology

From pyro- +‎ -cene, coined by American academic Stephen J. Pyne in 2016.

Proper noun

Pyrocene (uncountable)

1. The period of the Holocene/Anthropocene in which climate change causes more frequent and intense wildfires.
   • [2016 May 16, Stephen J. Pyne, “Welcome to the Pyrocene”, in Slate‎^[1], →ISSN:

     Those images of fire on fire are the raw footage of a planetary phase change, what might end up as a geologic era we could call the Pyrocene. They will continue until, as Shakespeare put it, they “consume the thing that feeds their fury.”]

   • 2019 November 20, Stephen J. Pyne, “The planet is burning”, in Aeon‎^[2]:

     Instead of ice sheets, glaciers and periglacial environments adjacent to the ice, a Pyrocene manifests itself with fire-informed biotas, fire-starved biotas, hot spots where fire is the dominant energy source, peripyric landscapes where humans equipped with pyrotechnologies have reshaped the scene, and of course a warming atmosphere and unhinged climate that passes over the planet.

   • 2020 January 3, Matt Simon, “Australia Is Blazing Into the Pyrocene—the Age of Fire”, in Wired:

     The supercharged blazes of the Pyrocene are putting millions upon millions of people around the world directly at risk, and even larger populations indirectly at risk with smoke.

   • 2021 August 28, Graham Lawton, “The dawn of the pyrocene”, in New Scientist, page 24:

     But be warned: the full, hellish fury of the pyrocene has yet to arrive.

   • 2021 November, Dale G. Nimmo, Alexandra J. R. Carthey, Chris J. Jolly, Daniel T. Blumstein, “Welcome to the Pyrocene: Animal survival in the age of the megafire”, in Global Change Biology, volume 27, number 22:

     The insights gained by such research will be essential to manage animal populations in the Pyrocene.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Pyrocene.