Peat-based climate reconstructions run into murky waters?

Peatlands are globally important ecosystems that serve as archives of past environmental change. Peatlands form over thousands of years from the accumulation of decaying plants and hold water, or in some cases purely rainwater. Hence, both external processes, such as climate, and internal processes, such as the rates of peat growth and decay, control the water table in peatlands. However, throughout the previous century and particularly over the past decade, paleoclimatologists have increasingly relied on reconstructions of the water table in rain-fed peatlands to infer changes in rainfall through the Holocene period (the past ~12,000 years), ignoring the potentially important role of internal processes.

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