scholarly journals The Potential to Use Variations in Tree-Ring Geometric Center to Estimate Past Wind Speed Change

Author(s):  
Keyan Fang ◽  
Maosheng He ◽  
Maowei Bai ◽  
Zhipeng Dong ◽  
Hans W. Linderholm ◽  
...  

Abstract Tree radial growth is characterized by not only the annual ring-width increment but also shifts in the tree-ring geometric center (TRGC) if subjected to asymmetric external forcing, such as prevailing winds. Previous dendrochronological studies have used the asymmetric growth derived from tree-ring widths to reconstruct wind speed changes. Here we propose a novel method use quantitative TRGC measurements to estimate wind speed. We investigated TRGC shifts in northeast China, where the prevailing westerly winds are strong and persistent. We found that the TRGC showed significant correlations (r = 0.64, p < 0.01) with wind speed in May-September. The higher tree geometry sensitivity to wind speed obtained with the new method compared to previous ones, suggests the possibility of reconstructing historical wind change and variability in prevailing winds using TRGC. In addition, by correcting tree-ring radius according to their TRGC shifts, the basal area increment (BAI) was calculated. Our new BAI estimation provided stronger correlations with climate than both the standard tree-ring width chronology and a traditional BAI estimation. We suggest that future dendrochronological studies should consider TRGC shifts to increase the accuracy in climate reconstructions.

The Holocene ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 095968362110116
Author(s):  
Jeroen DM Schreel

Over the last few decades – at a range of northern sites – changes in tree-ring width and latewood density have not followed mean summertime temperature fluctuations. This discrepancy sharply contrasts an earlier correlation between those variables. As the origin of this inconsistency has not been fully deciphered, questions have emerged regarding the use of tree-ring width and latewood density as a proxy in dendrochronological climate reconstructions. I suggest that temperature is no longer the most limiting factor in certain boreal areas, which might explain the observed divergence.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milena Godoy-Veiga ◽  
Giuliano Locosselli ◽  
Lior Regev ◽  
Elisabetta Boaretto ◽  
Gregório Ceccantini

&lt;p&gt;Tree-ring chronologies are an excellent climate archive for their spatial and temporal resolution. While networks of chronologies have been built outside the tropics helping to understand past regional climate trends, tropical regions still lag behind in terms of spatial coverage. Dendrochronological studies, however, may succeed in seasonally dry tropical forests where the growing season is well defined. &lt;em&gt;Amburana cearensis&lt;/em&gt;, found in both dry and wet forests in South America, is poorly explored for dendrochronological purposes, with no previous study in Brazil. Therefore, we sampled trees growing in a seasonally dry forest in a karstic area in Central-Eastern Brazil, under the South American Monsoon domain, in order to explore this species potential for dendroclimatological studies in the region. We build a tree-ring width chronology using 26 trees. We found a strong common growth signal among trees, with an r-bar of 0.51 and an average mean sensitivity of 0.50. The standard tree-ring width chronology showed a significant negative correlation with Vapor-Pressure Deficit during the entire wet season (0.54), negative correlation with temperature at the end of the wet season (0.45), and a positive correlation with the sum of precipitation during the wet season (0.46). Further stable isotopic analysis will provide additional records of climate variability in the region. Since Amburana cearensis occurs across most of the seasonally dry forests and savannas from South America, it has a great potential to be used to develop climate reconstructions and verify the effects of climate change currently affecting the region.&lt;/p&gt;


2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (6) ◽  
pp. 2245-2254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samresh Rai ◽  
Binod Dawadi ◽  
Yafeng Wang ◽  
Xiaoming Lu ◽  
Huang Ru ◽  
...  

Abstract The Himalayas are characterized by a broad gradient of bioclimatic zones along their elevation. However, less is known how forest growth responds to climatic change along elevation. In this study, four standard tree-ring width chronologies of Himalayan fir (Abiesspectabilis) were developed, spanning 142–649 years along an elevation gradient of 3076–3900 m a.s.l. Principal component analysis classified the four chronologies into two groups; the ones at lower elevations (M1 and M2) and higher elevations (M3 and M4) show two distinct growth trends. Radial growth is limited by summer (June–August) precipitation at M3, and by precipitation during spring (March–May) and summer at M4. It is limited by spring temperatures and winter precipitation (December–February) at M1. Tree-ring width chronologies also significantly correlate with winter and spring Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) at M1, and with summer PDSI at M3 and M4. Thus, Himalayan fir growth at high elevations is mainly limited by moisture stress rather than by low temperatures. Furthermore, the occurrence of missing rings coincides with dry periods, providing additional evidence for moisture limitation of Himalayan fir growth.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulf Büntgen ◽  
Kathy Allen ◽  
Kevin J. Anchukaitis ◽  
Dominique Arseneault ◽  
Étienne Boucher ◽  
...  

AbstractTree-ring chronologies underpin the majority of annually-resolved reconstructions of Common Era climate. However, they are derived using different datasets and techniques, the ramifications of which have hitherto been little explored. Here, we report the results of a double-blind experiment that yielded 15 Northern Hemisphere summer temperature reconstructions from a common network of regional tree-ring width datasets. Taken together as an ensemble, the Common Era reconstruction mean correlates with instrumental temperatures from 1794–2016 CE at 0.79 (p < 0.001), reveals summer cooling in the years following large volcanic eruptions, and exhibits strong warming since the 1980s. Differing in their mean, variance, amplitude, sensitivity, and persistence, the ensemble members demonstrate the influence of subjectivity in the reconstruction process. We therefore recommend the routine use of ensemble reconstruction approaches to provide a more consensual picture of past climate variability.


Author(s):  
Angélica Núñez-García ◽  
◽  
Armando Gómez-Guerrero ◽  
Teresa M. Terrazas-Salgado ◽  
J. Jesús Vargas-Hernández ◽  
...  

Introduction: Basal area increment (BAI) is an indicator of forest productivity that varies with tree age and site factors such as soil and climate. Objective: To generate tree-ring width index (RWI) and BAI chronologies of Pinus hartwegii Lindl., relate them to climatic variables, and study the variation in BAI at different altitudes and aspects. Materials and methods: Four observation sites were identified, combining northwest (NW) and southwest (SW) aspects, as well as altitudes of 3 800 and 3 700 m. At each site, the temperature was recorded every four hours for 435 days and 32 growth ring segments were collected using a Pressler´s increment borer. Tree-ring width was measured and BAI was calculated; the correlation index between these indicators and the climatic variables was Pearson’s correlation coefficient. Results and discussion: The RWI series from the four observation sites had an intercorrelation of 0.33 (P < 0.01). Two low-growth periods were detected, one between 1950 and 1960 and the other between 1990 and 2005. Site SO-3700 had a different growth pattern, due to a second growth phase beginning in 1978, possibly a benefit resulting from increased temperature. The previous autumn temperature, spring temperature and April-September precipitation of the current year explained the variation in BAI (P < 0.05). Conclusion: The BAI of P. hartwegii could respond favorably to the predicted increases in temperature at an altitude of 3 700 m with southwest aspect.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Tejedor ◽  
M. A. Saz ◽  
J. M. Cuadrat ◽  
J. Esper ◽  
M. de Luis

Abstract. Tree-rings are an important proxy to understand the natural drivers of climate variability in the Mediterranean basin and hence to improve future climate scenarios in a vulnerable region. Here, we compile 316 tree-ring width series from 11 conifer sites in the western Iberian Range. We apply a new standardization method based on the trunk basal area instead of the tree cambial age to develop a regional chronology which preserves high to low frequency variability. A new reconstruction for the 1602–2012 period correlates at −0.78 with observational September temperatures with a cumulative mean of the 21 previous months over the 1945–2012 calibration period. The new IR2Tmax reconstruction is spatially representative for the Iberian Peninsula and captures the full range of past Iberian Range temperature variability. Reconstructed long-term temperature variations match reasonably well with solar irradiance changes since warm and cold phases correspond with high and low solar activity, respectively. In addition, some annual temperatures downturns coincide with volcanic eruptions with a three year lag.


2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 1083-1097 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. Solomina ◽  
I. Pavlova ◽  
A. Curtis ◽  
G. Jacoby ◽  
V. Ponomareva ◽  
...  

Abstract. Shiveluch (N 56°38´, E 161°19´; elevation: active dome ~2500 m, summit of Old Shiveluch 3283 m) is one of the most active volcanoes in Kamchatka. The eruptions of Shiveluch commonly result in major environmental damage caused by debris avalanches, hot pyroclastic flows, tephra falls and lahars. Constraining these events in time and space is important for the understanding and prediction of these natural hazards. The last major eruption of Shiveluch occurred in 2005; earlier ones, dated by instrumental, historical, 14C and tephrochronological methods, occurred in the last millennium around AD 1030, 1430, 1650, 1739, 1790–1810, 1854, 1879–1883, 1897–1898, 1905, 1927–1929, 1944–1950, and 1964. A lava dome has been growing in the 1964 crater since 1980, occasionally producing tephra falls and pyroclastic flows. Several Shiveluch eruptions (~AD 1050, 1650, 1854, 1964) may have been climatically effective and are probably recorded in the Greenland ice cores. Previously, most dates for eruptions before AD 1854 were obtained by tephrochronology and constrained by radiocarbon dating with an accuracy of several decades or centuries. In this paper we report tree-ring dates for a recent pyroclastic flow in Baidarnaia valley. Though the wood buried in these deposits is carbonized, fragile and poorly preserved, we were able to measure ring-width using standard tree-ring equipment or photographs and to cross-date these samples against the regional Kamchatka larch ring-width chronology. The dates of the outer rings indicate the date of the eruptions. In the Baidarnaia valley the eruption occurred shortly after AD 1756, but not later than AD 1758. This date coincides with the decrease of ring-width in trees growing near Shiveluch volcano in 1758–1763 in comparison with the control "non-volcanic" chronology. The pyroclastic flow in Kamenskaia valley, although similar in appearance to the one in Baidarnaia valley, definitively yielded a different age. Due to the age limit of the reference chronology (AD 1632–2005) and its short overlap with the sample chronology in Kamenskaia valley the dates of these deposits are very preliminary. The deposits probably date back to approximately AD 1649 or a few years later. This date is in close agreement with the previously obtained radiocarbon date of these sediments to AD 1641(1652)1663. Our data agree well with the tephrochronological findings, and further constrain the chronology of volcanic events in this remote area.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olga Ukhvatkina ◽  
Alexander Omelko ◽  
Dmitriy Kislov ◽  
Alexander Zhmerenetsky ◽  
Tatyana Epifanova ◽  
...  

Abstract. Here, we present precipitation reconstructions based on tree rings from Pinus koraiensis (Korean pine) from three sites placed along latitudinal (330 km) gradient in Sikhote-Alin mountains, Russian Far East. The tree-ring width chronologies were built using standard tree-ring procedures. We reconstructed the April–June precipitation for the southern Sikhote-Alin (SSA), March–June precipitation for the central Sikhote-Alin (CSA) and March–July precipitation for the northwestern Sikhote-Alin (NSA) over the 1609 to 2013, 1804 to 2009 and 1858 to 2013, respectively. We found that an important limiting factor for Korean pine growth was precipitation within the period when the air current coming from the continent during the cold period is replaced with the impact of the wet ocean air current. We identified common wet years for SSA, CSA and NSA occurred in 1805, 1853, 1877, 1903, 1906, 1927, 1983, 2009 and common dry years occurred in 1821, 1869, 1919, 1949 and 2003. Our reconstructions have 3, 15 and 60 year periods and corresponds to influence of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation and Pacific Decadal Oscillation on the region's climate and relevant processes, respectively. Despite the impact of various global processes, the main contribution to precipitation formation in study area is still made by the Pacific Ocean, which determines their amount and periodicity.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernesto Tejedor ◽  
Miguel Ángel Saz ◽  
José María Cuadrat ◽  
Jan Esper ◽  
Martín de Luis

Abstract. Tree rings are an important proxy to understand the natural drivers of climate variability in the Mediterranean Basin and hence to improve future climate scenarios in a vulnerable region. Here, we compile 316 tree-ring width series from 11 conifer sites in the western Iberian Range. We apply a new standardization method based on the trunk basal area instead of the tree cambial age to develop a regional chronology which preserves high- to low-frequency variability. A new reconstruction for the 1602–2012 period correlates at −0.78 with observational September temperatures with a cumulative mean of the 21 previous months over the 1945–2012 calibration period. The new IR2Tmax reconstruction is spatially representative for the Iberian Peninsula and captures the full range of past Iberian Range temperature variability. Reconstructed long-term temperature variations match reasonably well with solar irradiance changes since warm and cold phases correspond with high and low solar activity, respectively. In addition, some annual temperature downturns coincide with volcanic eruptions with a 3-year lag.


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