Two hundred year variation of southern red spruce radial growth as estimated by spectral analysis
Spectral analysis was applied to high-elevation (≥1800 m) old-growth (≥200 years) red spruce (Picearubens Sarg.) tree-ring data from eight plots on Clingmans Dome, North Carolina. Low-frequency sine and cosine functions with wavelengths greater than or equal to 10 years accounted for between 76 and 90% of the variation in mean ring widths for all eight sites analyzed. Mean radial growth has increased and decreased no less than nine times over the last 200 years, with no evidence of constant radial growth for extended periods of time. Since the mid-1960s, radial growth has decreased and increased twice and is currently increasing through 1986, the last year of sampling. Growth in 1976 was equal to or greater than pre-1965 levels. A local maximum (mid-1960s) of the periodic cycles in radial growth coincides with the reported downturn in radial growth of red spruce at other locations in the southern Appalachians. Verification of historical growth periodicities can best be evaluated through continual monitoring of trees from a greater number of sites.