Summer Temperature Since 1600 for the Upper Kolyma Region, Northeastern Russia, Reconstructed from Tree Rings

The Himalaya is one of the major mountain ecosystems that is most likely to be impacted by climate change. The main drawback in understanding climate change in the remote Himalayan ecosystems is the lack of long-term instrumental climate records. Reconstructing past climates from tree-rings offers a useful proxy for adding data to the instrumental climate records. In this study, climatically sensitive tree-rings of Himalayan fir (Abies pindrow) were used for reconstruction of mean June–July temperatures of Kashmir valley. Total ring-width chronology was built from 60 tree-ring cores growing near the higher altitudinal limits of the species. The radial growth showed a strong positive response to growing season temperature. The strong response of site chronology to mean June–July temperatures was used for reconstruction purposes. Mean June–July temperatures of Kashmir valley were reconstructed since 1773 from residual site chronology. Though the reconstruction did not show any strong long-term trend, on a centennial-scale, 20th-century summers were the warmest with a mean annual summer temperature of 22.99 °C. Seven of the warmest years and five of the warmest decades were seen in the 20th century. The reconstruction for 1773–2012 showed 23 extreme hot summers above the hot threshold of a 23.47 °C mean temperature and 19 extreme cold years below the cold threshold of a 22.46 °C mean summer temperature. The cold years in the reconstruction did not coincide with known volcanic eruptions. This reconstruction will help in providing a better understanding of regional climate change.

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Proxy Climatic Data from Tree Rings at Lake Louise, Alberta : A Preliminary Report

Géographie physique et Quaternaire ◽

10.7202/032597ar ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 39 (2) ◽

pp. 127-140 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

B. H. Luckman ◽

J. P. Hamilton ◽

L. A. Jozsa ◽

J. Gray

Keyword(s):

Tree Ring ◽

Tree Rings ◽

Preliminary Report ◽

Ring Width ◽

Summer Temperature ◽

Picea Engelmannii ◽

Climatic Data ◽

X Ray ◽

Preliminary Results ◽

Components Analysis

ABSTRACT Preliminary results are presented of studies using oxygen isotopes and tree-ring densitometry to derive proxy climatic data from Picea engelmannii and Abies Iasiocarpa in the Canadian Rockies. Significant correlations occur between mean annual temperatures and δ18O determinations from five year groups of tree rings from three trees. However, unexplained anomalies in these relationships indicate that ring-width effects may reduce this correlation in some cases and that further exploratory work is necessary. Indexed chronologies for the period 1705-1980 were developed for 15 tree-ring variables derived by X-ray densitometry from 16 Picea cores. Principal components analysis was used to identify three groups of highly inter-correlated variables related to ring width, earlywood density and latewood characteristics. Each group responds differently to climatic controls increasing the potential for development of proxy climatic data over ring-width measures alone. Transfer function development is incomplete but preliminary results for summer temperature (June and July, R2 = 0,46) and December-March precipitation (R2 = 0,40) are presented as examples. Using these equations preliminary reconstructions for the period 1710-1980 are presented.

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