Tree rings and volcanic cooling

Revising midlatitude summer temperatures back to A.D. 600 based on a wood density network

Annually resolved and millennium-long reconstructions of large-scale temperature variability are primarily composed of tree ring width (TRW) chronologies. Changes in ring width, however, have recently been shown to bias the ratio between low- and high-frequency signals. To overcome limitations in capturing the full spectrum of past temperature variability, we present a network of 15 maximum latewood density (MXD) chronologies distributed across the Northern Hemisphere extratropics. Independent subsets of continental-scale records consistently reveal high MXD before 1580 and after 1910, with below average values between these periods. Reconstructed extratropical summer temperatures reflect n…

A global perspective on the climate‐driven growth synchrony of neighbouring trees

2 .pdf files: File 1. Author's article final version, Post-Print (19 Pags.- 4 Figs.- 2 Tabls.). File 2. Supplementary Materials (3 Figs.- 2 Tabls.- 1 Model Equation).

New Tree-Ring Evidence from the Pyrenees Reveals Western Mediterranean Climate Variability since Medieval Times

Paleoclimatic evidence is necessary to place the current warming and drying of the western Mediterranean basin in a long-term perspective of natural climate variability. Annually resolved and absolutely dated temperature proxies south of the European Alps that extend back into medieval times are, however, mainly limited to measurements of maximum latewood density (MXD) from high-elevation conifers. Here, the authors present the world’s best replicated MXD site chronology of 414 living and relict Pinus uncinata trees found >2200 m above mean sea level (MSL) in the Spanish central Pyrenees. This composite record correlates significantly ( p ≤ 0.01) with May–June and August–September mean …

Using machine learning on tree-ring data to determine the geographical provenance of historical construction timbers

Funder: Bavarian Climate Research Network (BayKliF)

Plants in the UK flower a month earlier under recent warming.

Global temperatures are rising at an unprecedented rate, but environmental responses are often difficult to recognize and quantify. Long-term observations of plant phenology, the annually recurring sequence of plant developmental stages, can provide sensitive measures of climate change and important information for ecosystem services. Here, we present 419 354 recordings of the first flowering date from 406 plant species in the UK between 1753 and 2019 CE. Community-wide first flowering advanced by almost one month on average when comparing all observations before and after 1986 ( p < 0.0001). The mean first flowering time is 6 days earlier in southern than northern sites, 5 days earlier…

Long-term decrease in Asian monsoon rainfall and abrupt climate change events over the past 6,700 years

Significance The variability of the Asian summer monsoon (ASM) is important for the functioning of ecological and societal systems at regional to continental scales, but the long-term evolution and interannual variability of this system is not well understood. Here, we present a stable isotope–based reconstruction of ASM variability covering 4680 BCE to 2011 CE. Superimposed on a gradual drying trend, a rapid drop in mean annual precipitation (>40%) toward persistently drier conditions occurred in ∼1675 BCE. This megadrought caused regional forest deterioration and enhanced aeolian activity affecting Chinese ecosystems. We argue that this abrupt aridification starting ∼2000 BCE triggered wa…

Signals and memory in tree-ring width and density data

It has been suggested that maximum latewood density (MXD) should be used instead of tree-ring width (TRW) data to reconstruct post-volcanic cooling effects. A thorough assessment of high frequency signals and potentially differing memory effects in long MXD and TRW chronologies, in response to large volcanic eruptions, is still missing, however. We here present a compilation of MXD and TRW chronologies from 11 sites in the Northern Hemisphere, covering the past 750+ years, and containing significant June–August temperature signals. Basic assessment of the data using Superposed Epoch Analysis reveals a temporally extended response in TRW, by 2–3 years, to large volcanic eruptions, though pos…

Seasonal Changes in Urban PM2.5 Hotspots and Sources from Low-Cost Sensors

PM2.5 concentrations in urban areas are highly variable, both spatially and seasonally. To assess these patterns and the underlying sources, we conducted PM2.5 exposure measurements at the adult breath level (1.6 m) along three ~5 km routes in urban districts of Mainz (Germany) using portable low-cost Alphasense OPC-N3 sensors. The survey took place on five consecutive days including four runs each day (38 in total) in September 2020 and March 2021. While the between-sensor accuracy was tested to be good (R² = 0.98), the recorded PM2.5 values underestimated the official measurement station data by up to 25 µg/m3. The collected data showed no consistent PM2.5 hotspots between September and M…

Temporal variations in microclimate cooling induced by urban trees in Mainz, Germany

Abstract Global warming is likely to increase the frequency and magnitude of heat waves. As the urban geometry and material amplifies warming, city dwellers will face an intensification of heat-induced health problems and mortality. Although increased vegetation cover is frequently used in urban planning to mitigate excessive heat, temporal variations, as well as the influence of synoptic weather conditions and surrounding urban geometry on the vegetation cooling effect, are still unclear. In this study, we monitored the transpiration-induced cooling from trees over two summers in five urban settings characterized by varying levels of greenness and urban geometry in the city of Mainz (Germa…

Detection and evaluation of an early divergence problem in northern Fennoscandian tree-ring data

Although not yet fully understood, reduced sensitivity of tree growth to temperature at high northern latitudes during the last ˜ 40 years is often linked to concurrent anthropogenic changes of atmospheric composition and global warming. The idea that a temporal localization of the problem could improve its understanding initiated a search for erratic growth-patterns in earlier periods of high quality dendrochronological archives. An extensive network of maximum latewood density (MXD) measurements from northern Fennoscandia likely represents one of the most reliable regional summer-temperature reconstructions. The strong coherence between proxy and instrumental data is, however, interrupted…

Ranking of tree-ring based temperature reconstructions of the past millennium

German Science Foundation [161/9-1]; National Natural Science Foundation of China [41325008]; [RNF 15-14-30011]

Cooling and societal change during the Late Antique Little Ice Age from 536 to around 660 AD

Societal upheaval occurred across Eurasia in the sixth and seventh centuries. Tree-ring reconstructions suggest a period of pronounced cooling during this time associated with several volcanic eruptions. Climatic changes during the first half of the Common Era have been suggested to play a role in societal reorganizations in Europe1,2 and Asia3,4. In particular, the sixth century coincides with rising and falling civilizations1,2,3,4,5,6, pandemics7,8, human migration and political turmoil8,9,10,11,12,13. Our understanding of the magnitude and spatial extent as well as the possible causes and concurrences of climate change during this period is, however, still limited. Here we use tree-ring…

Modeling the epidemiological history of plague in Central Asia: Palaeoclimatic forcing on a disease system over the past millennium

Abstract Background Human cases of plague (Yersinia pestis) infection originate, ultimately, in the bacterium's wildlife host populations. The epidemiological dynamics of the wildlife reservoir therefore determine the abundance, distribution and evolution of the pathogen, which in turn shape the frequency, distribution and virulence of human cases. Earlier studies have shown clear evidence of climatic forcing on contemporary plague abundance in rodents and humans. Results We find that high-resolution palaeoclimatic indices correlate with plague prevalence and population density in a major plague host species, the great gerbil (Rhombomys opimus), over 1949-1995. Climate-driven models trained…

Influence of wood harvest on tree-ring time-series of Picea abies in a temperate forest

Tree-ring width data are the prime source of high-resolution climate reconstructions covering recent mil- lennia. Their variations, from year-to-year, are calibrated against regional instrumental data to evaluate the strength of associations with temperature and precipitation records, though the level of variance explained by climatic variables is frequently less than 50%. Among the remaining factors affecting tree growth, the influence of forest management for tree-ring width time-series used to resolve annual climate reconstructions remains relatively unexplored. We here evaluate the impact of conventional single-tree harvesting on tree-ring data using a compilation of circumstantially ma…

New tree-ring evidence for the Late Glacial period from the northern pre-Alps in eastern Switzerland

Abstract The rate and magnitude of temperature variability at the transition from the Last Glacial Maximum into the early Holocene represents a natural analog to current and predicted climate change. A limited number of high-resolution proxy archives, however, challenges our understanding of environmental conditions during this period. Here, we present combined dendrochronological and radiocarbon evidence from 253 newly discovered subfossil pine stumps from Zurich, Switzerland. The individual trees reveal ages of 41–506 years and were growing between the Allerod and Preboreal (∼13′900–11′300 cal BP). Together with previously collected pines from this region, this world's best preserved Late…

Old World Megadroughts and Pluvials During the Common Era

An atlas of megadroughts in Europe and in the Mediterranean Basin during the Common Era provides insights into climate variability.

Weakening of annual temperature cycle over the Tibetan Plateau since the 1870s

The annual cycle of extra-tropical surface air temperature is an important component of the Earth's climate system. Over the past decades, a reduced amplitude of this mode has been observed in some regions. Although attributed to anthropogenic forcing, it remains unclear when dampening of the annual cycle started. Here we use a residual series of tree-ring width and maximum latewood density from the Tibetan Plateau >4,000 m asl to reconstruct changes in temperature seasonality over the past three centuries. The new proxy evidence suggests that the onset of a decrease in summer-to-winter temperature difference over the Tibetan Plateau occurred in the 1870s. Our results imply that the influen…

A Review of 2000 Years of Paleoclimatic Evidence in the Mediterranean

[EN] The integration of climate information from instrumental data and documentary and natural archives; evidence of past human activity derived from historical, paleoecological, and archaeological records; and new climate modeling techniques promises major breakthroughs for our understanding of climate sensitivity, ecological processes, environmental response, and human impact. In this chapter, we review the availability and potential of instrumental data, less well-known written records, and terrestrial and marine natural proxy archives for climate in the Mediterranean region over the last 2000 years. We highlight the need to integrate these different proxy archives and the importance for…

Orbital forcing of tree-ring data

Based on an analysis of maximum latewood density data from northern Scandinavia, along with published dendrochronological records, this study finds evidence that previous tree-ring-reliant reconstructions of large-scale near-surface air temperature underestimated long-term pre-industrial warmth during Medieval and Roman times. Solar insolation changes, resulting from long-term oscillations of orbital configurations1, are an important driver of Holocene climate2,3. The forcing is substantial over the past 2,000 years, up to four times as large as the 1.6 W m−2 net anthropogenic forcing since 1750 (ref. 4), but the trend varies considerably over time, space and with season5. Using numerous hi…

The Palaeoanthropocene – The beginnings of anthropogenic environmental change

Abstract As efforts to recognize the Anthropocene as a new epoch of geological time are mounting, the controversial debate about the time of its beginning continues. Here, we suggest the term Palaeoanthropocene for the period between the first, barely recognizable, anthropogenic environmental changes and the industrial revolution when anthropogenically induced changes of climate, land use and biodiversity began to increase very rapidly. The concept of the Palaeoanthropocene recognizes that humans are an integral part of the Earth system rather than merely an external forcing factor. The delineation of the beginning of the Palaeoanthropocene will require an increase in the understanding and …

No growth stimulation of Canada’s boreal forest under half-century of combined warming and CO 2 fertilization

Considerable evidence exists that current global temperatures are higher than at any time during the past millennium. However, the long-term impacts of rising temperatures and associated shifts in the hydrological cycle on the productivity of ecosystems remain poorly understood for mid to high northern latitudes. Here, we quantify species-specific spatiotemporal variability in terrestrial aboveground biomass stem growth across Canada’s boreal forests from 1950 to the present. We use 873 newly developed tree-ring chronologies from Canada’s National Forest Inventory, representing an unprecedented degree of sampling standardization for a large-scale dendrochronological study. We find significa…

Sensitivity of whole wood stable carbon and oxygen isotope values to milling procedures

RATIONALE Milling of wood samples is a widely applied preparation method for pooling tree-rings from different trees or periods of several years for determination of δ13C and δ18O values. In this study, whole wood samples were milled using different procedures in order to evaluate potential effects of this preparation method on δ13C and δ18O values. METHODS Subsamples of a 5 cm3 wood piece of a single tree-ring from a lowland white fir were used. The samples were milled with different setups: (i) two and three stainless-steel balls, (ii) 3, 5 and 8 min milling time, and (iii) discontinuous and continuous milling. The δ13C values were measured using an elemental analyser connected to an IsoP…

Timber Logging in Central Siberia is the Main Source for Recent Arctic Driftwood

Abstract Recent findings indicated spruce from North America and larch from eastern Siberia to be the dominating tree species of Arctic driftwood throughout the Holocene. However, changes in source region forest and river characteristics, as well as ocean current dynamics and sea ice extent likely influence its spatiotemporal composition. Here, we present 2556 driftwood samples from Greenland, Iceland, Svalbard, and the Faroe Islands. A total of 498 out of 969 Pinus sylvestris ring width series were cross-dated at the catchment level against a network of Eurasian boreal reference chronologies. The central Siberian Yenisei and Angara Rivers account for 91% of all dated pines, with their oute…

No Age Trends in Oak Stable Isotopes

Temperature variability in the Iberian Range since 1602 inferred from tree-ring records

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 reconstr…

Climate signals in carbon and oxygen isotope ratios of Pinus cembra tree‐ring cellulose from the Călimani Mountains, Romania

Abstract We analyze annually resolved tree-ring stable carbon (I´13C) and oxygen (I´18O) isotopic chronologies from Swiss stone pine (Pinus cembra L.) in Romania. The chronologies cover the period between 1876 and 2012 and integrate data from four individual trees from the Calimani Mts in the eastern Carpathians where climatic records are scarce and starts only from 1961. Calibration trials show that the I´13C values correlate with local April-May relative humidity and with regional to larger scale (European) summer precipitation. I´18O correlates significantly with local relative humidity, cloud cover, maximum temperature, as well as European scale drought conditions. In all cases, the cli…

Multi-archive summer temperature reconstruction for the European Alps, AD 1053–1996

We present a multi-archive, multi-proxy summer temperature reconstruction for the European Alps covering the period AD 1053e1996 using tree-ring and lake sediment data. The new reconstruction is based on nine different calibration approaches and errors were estimated conservatively. Summer temperatures of the last millennium are characterised by two warm (AD 1053e1171 and 1823e1996) and two cold phases (AD 1172e1379 and 1573e1822). Highest pre-industrial summer temperatures of the 12th century were 0.3 � C warmer than the 20th century mean but 0.35 � C colder than proxy derived

Climate sensitivity of high- and low-elevation Larix decidua MXD chronologies from the Tatra Mountains

Abstract Maximum latewood density (MXD) measurements from high-elevation/-latitude sites are an important proxy for summer temperature reconstructions. Here, we present 201 MXD series from living larch (Larix decidua Mill.) trees that were growing at around 850 and 1450 m a.s.l. in the Slovakian Tatra Mountains, together with 56 MXD series from historical timbers of the same species and region. We explore the climate signal at the high- and low-elevation sites and assess the effects of varying temperature and precipitation regimes on MXD formation. Ranging from spring temperature to summer precipitation, the elevation-specific climate sensitivity suggests that the MXD measurements from livi…

Scientific Merits and Analytical Challenges of Tree‐Ring Densitometry

X-ray microdensitometry on annually resolved tree-ring samples has gained an exceptional position in last-millennium paleoclimatology through the maximum latewood density (MXD) parameter, but also increasingly through other density parameters. For 50 years, X-ray based measurement techniques have been the de facto standard. However, studies report offsets in the mean levels for MXD measurements derived from different laboratories, indicating challenges of accuracy and precision. Moreover, reflected visible light-based techniques are becoming increasingly popular, and wood anatomical techniques are emerging as a potentially powerful pathway to extract density information at the highest resol…

Statistical modelling and RCS detrending methods provide similar estimates of long-term trend in radial growth of common beech in north-eastern France

International audience; Dendrochronological methods have greatly contributed to the documentation of past long-term trends in forest growth. These methods primarily focus on the high-frequency signals of tree ring chronologies. They require the removal of the ageing trend in tree growth, known as 'standardisation' or 'detrending', as a prerequisite to the estimation of such trends. Because the approach is sequential, it may however absorb part of the low-frequency historical signal. In this study, we investigate the effect of a sequential and a simultaneous estimation of the ageing trend on the chronology of growth. We formerly developed a method to estimate historical changes in growth, in…

Multi-centennial summer and winter precipitation variability in southern South America

[1] We present the first spatially and temporally highly resolved gridded reconstruction of multi-centennial precipitation variability for southern South America (SSA). A novel reconstruction approach of deriving 10,000 ensemble members based on varying predictor networks and methodological settings allows the identification of spatiotemporal changes in SSA precipitation and associated uncertainties. The summer and winter reconstructions back to AD 1498 and AD 1590, respectively, provide new evidence for multi-centennial increase in summer precipitation and an opposing decrease in winter precipitation into the 20th century. The drying in winter is significant over large parts of SSA, wherea…

Illuminating Intcal During the Younger Dryas

As the worldwide standard for radiocarbon (14C) dating over the past ca. 50,000 years, the International Calibration Curve (IntCal) is continuously improving towards higher resolution and replication. Tree-ring-based 14C measurements provide absolute dating throughout most of the Holocene, although high-precision data are limited for the Younger Dryas interval and farther back in time. Here, we describe the dendrochronological characteristics of 1448 new 14C dates, between ~11,950 and 13,160 cal BP, from 13 pines that were growing in Switzerland. Significantly enhancing the ongoing IntCal update (IntCal20), this Late Glacial (LG) compilation contains more annually precise 14C dates than any…

Warm season precipitation signal in δ 2 H values of wood lignin methoxyl groups from high elevation larch trees in Switzerland

RATIONALE In this study, we tested stable hydrogen isotope ratios of wood lignin methoxyl groups (δ 2Hmethoxyl values) as a palaeoclimate proxy in dendrochronology. This is a quite new method in the field of dendrochronology and the sample preparation is much simpler than the methods used before to measure δ2H values from wood. METHODS We measured δ 2Hmethoxyl values in high elevation larch trees (Larix decidua Mill.) from Simplon Valley (southern Switzerland). Thirty-seven larch trees were sampled and five individuals analysed for their δ 2Hmethoxyl values at annual (1971-2009) and pentadal resolution (1746-2009). The δ 2Hmethoxyl values were measured as CH3I released upon treatment of the…

Annually resolved δ<sup>2</sup>H tree-ring chronology of the lignin methoxyl groups from Germany reflects averaged Western European surface air temperature changes

Abstract. Stable hydrogen isotopes ratios of lignin methoxyl groups (expressed as δ2HLM) of wood have been shown to reflect the climate-sensitive δ2H values of precipitation (expressed as δ2Hprecip) modulated by a large uniform negative isotope fractionation. However, a detailed calibration study among temporal variabilities of δ2HLM in tree-ring series, site-specific δ2Hprecip and climate parameters has not been performed yet. Here, we present annually resolved δ2HLM values from nine tree-ring series (derived from four Fagus sylvatica L. trees) collected near stations of the Global Isotope Network of Isotopes in Precipitation (GNIP) and the Deutsche Wetterdienst (DWD) meteorological observ…

Climatic signatures in early modern European grain harvest yields

Abstract. The association between climate variability and grain harvest yields has been an important component of food security and economy in European history. Yet, inter-regional comparisons of climate–yield relationships have been hampered by locally varying data types and use of different statistical methods. Using a coherent statistical framework, considering the effects of diverse serial correlations on significance, we assess the temperature and hydroclimate (precipitation and drought) signatures in grain harvest yields across varying environmental settings of early modern (c. 1500–1800) Europe. An unprecedentedly large network of yield records from northern (Sweden), central (Switze…

D/H ratios of methoxyl groups of the sedimentary organic matter of Lake Holzmaar (Eifel, Germany): A potential palaeoclimate/-hydrology proxy

Stable hydrogen isotope ratios (dD values) of methoxyl groups in lignin and pectin from a variety of plant types from different locations have been shown to mirror dD values of precipitation, with a mean uniform isotopic fractionation. Since dD in precipitation is mainly influenced by climatic conditions, including temperature, evaporation and precipitation amount, methoxyl groups of organic matter have been proposed as a potential palaeoclimate proxy. Here, we measured the dD values of the methoxyl groups of sedimentary organic matter derived from sediment core segments of Lake Holzmaar (Eifel, Germany). The sediment core covers the entire Holocene and part of the Late Glacial (until 13,65…

A noodle, hockey stick, and spaghetti plate: a perspective on high‐resolution paleoclimatology

The high-resolution reconstruction of hemispheric-scale temperature variation over the past-millennium benchmarks recent warming against more naturally driven climate episodes, such as the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period, thereby allowing assessment of the relative efficacies of natural and anthropogenic forcing factors. Icons of past temperature variability, as featured in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports over nearly two decades, have changed from a schematic sketch in 1990, to a seemingly well-solved story in 2001, to more explicit recognition of significant uncertainties in 2007. In this article, we detail the beginning of the movement to reconstru…

Tree-Ring Amplification of the Early Nineteenth-Century Summer Cooling in Central Europe

Abstract Annually resolved and absolutely dated tree-ring chronologies are the most important proxy archives to reconstruct climate variability over centuries to millennia. However, the suitability of tree-ring chronologies to reflect the “true” spectral properties of past changes in temperature and hydroclimate has recently been debated. At issue is the accurate quantification of temperature differences between early nineteenth-century cooling and recent warming. In this regard, central Europe (CEU) offers the unique opportunity to compare evidence from instrumental measurements, paleomodel simulations, and proxy reconstructions covering both the exceptionally hot summer of 2003 and the ye…

Pre‐instrumental summer precipitation variability in northwestern Greece from a high‐elevation Pinus heldreichii network

The spatiotemporal variability of precipitation is of vital importance to Mediterranean ecology and economy, but pre‐instrumental changes are not well understood. Here, we present a millennial‐length June–July precipitation reconstruction derived from a network of 22 Pinus heldreichii high‐elevation sites in the Pindus Mountains of northwestern Greece. Tree‐ring width chronologies from these sites cohere exceptionally well over the past several hundred years (r1467–2015 = 0.64) revealing coherence at inter‐annual to centennial timescales across the network. The network mean calibrates significantly against instrumental June–July precipitation over the past 40 years (r1976–2015 = 0.71), even…

Reply to 'Limited Late Antique cooling'

Meet Adonis, Europe’s oldest dendrochronologically dated tree

Continental-scale temperature variability during the past two millennia

Past global climate changes had strong regional expression. To elucidate their spatio-temporal pattern, we reconstructed past temperatures for seven continental-scale regions during the past one to two millennia. The most coherent feature in nearly all of the regional temperature reconstructions is a long-term cooling trend, which ended late in the nineteenth century. At multi-decadal to centennial scales, temperature variability shows distinctly different regional patterns, with more similarity within each hemisphere than between them. There were no globally synchronous multi-decadal warm or cold intervals that define a worldwide Medieval Warm Period or Little Ice Age, but all reconstructi…

Tree-ring indicators of German summer drought over the last millennium

Past natural and future anthropogenic drought variability has and will impact terrestrial ecosystems, agricultural productivity, socio-economic conditions, and public health on various time-scales. In comparison to reconstructed and projected temperature change, much less is known about variations in the hydrological cycle. Here we present 953 living and historical oak (Quercus sp) ring width samples from Central Germany (51–52

On the hidden significance of differing micro-sites on tree-ring based climate reconstructions

Tree-ring chronologies are commonly extended back in time by combining samples from living trees with relict material preserved in man-made structures or natural archives (e.g. lakes). Although spatially close, these natural archives and living-tree-sites often comprise different micro-climates. Inhomogeneous growth conditions among these habitats, which may yield offsets in growth-rates, require caution in data processing. Here we assess species-specific growth dynamics in two micro-habitats and their potential effects on long chronologies by combining tree-ring data from different living-tree-sites with an “artificial” subfossil dataset. Well replicated (n > 80) Norway spruce (…

The temperature sensitivity along elevational gradients is more stable in maximum latewood density than tree-ring width

Modeling transpiration and leaf temperature of urban trees – A case study evaluating the microclimate model ENVI-met against measurement data

Abstract Increasing vegetation cover in cities is a key approach to mitigating urban heat excess. However, both the effect of vegetation on microclimate and the plants’ vitality need to be assessed to support and quantify the effects of such strategies. One way to assess the interactions between vegetation and the urban environment is through microclimate models that can simulate the effects of vegetation onto the urban microclimate as well as effects of urban environments onto vegetation. To provide reliable estimates microclimate models need to be parameterized based on empirically obtained data. In this paper we compare modeled transpiration rates and leaf temperatures of a leading micro…

Detection and elimination of UHI effects in long temperature records from villages – A case study from Tivissa, Spain

Abstract Since villages are usually regarded as part of the rural area, associated temperature records are assumed to be free of urban influences and might be used as unbiased reference data for city records. However, based on two years of data from a high temporal and spatial resolution sensor network, this study proves the development of a substantial UHI in the Spanish village Tivissa with intensities of >1.5 K in summer Tmin and Tmax compared to a rural reference. Hosting a meteorological station that has been relocated several times within Tivissa during its >100-year history, we here detail a method to remove UHI biases at past measurement sites to create a more reliable rural tempera…

Common Era treeline fluctuations and their implications for climate reconstructions

Comparison of δ(13)C and δ(18)O from cellulose, whole wood, and resin-free whole wood from an old high elevation Pinus uncinata in the Spanish central Pyrenees.

δ(13)C and δ(18)O values from sapwood of a single Pinus uncinata tree, from a high elevation site in the Spanish Pyrenees, were determined to evaluate the differences between whole wood and resin-free whole wood. This issue is addressed for the first time with P. uncinata over a 38-year long period. Results are also compared with published isotope values of α-cellulose samples from the same tree. The differences in δ(13)C and δ(18)O between whole wood and resin-free whole wood vary within the analytical uncertainty of 0.3 and 0.5 ‰, respectively, indicating that resin extraction is not necessary for sapwood of P. uncinata. Mean differences between cellulose and whole wood are 0.9 ‰ (δ(13)C)…

Climate–human interactions contributed to historical forest recruitment dynamics in Mediterranean subalpine ecosystems

Long-term tree recruitment dynamics of subalpine forests mainly depend on temperature changes, but little is known about the feedbacks between historical land use and climate. Here, we analyze a southern European, millennium-long dataset of tree recruitment from three high-elevation pine forests located in Mediterranean mountains (Pyrenees, northeastern Spain; Pollino, southern Italy; and Mt. Smolikas, northern Greece). We identify synchronized recruitment peaks in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, following prolonged periods of societal and climate instability. Major European population crises in the 14th and 15th centuries associated with recurrent famines, the Black Death pandemic,…

Annually resolved δ2H tree-ring chronology of the lignin methoxyl groups from Germany reflects averaged Western European surface air temperature changes

Stable hydrogen isotopes ratios of lignin methoxyl groups (expressed as δ2HLM) of wood have been shown to reflect the climate-sensitive δ2H values of precipitation (expressed as δ2Hprecip) modulated by a large uniform negative isotope fractionation. However, a detailed calibration study among temporal variabilities of δ2HLM in tree-ring series, site-specific δ2Hprecip and climate parameters has not been performed yet. Here, we present annually resolved δ2HLM values from nine tree-ring series (derived from four Fagus sylvatica L. trees) collected near stations of the Global Isotope Network of Isotopes in Precipitation (GNIP) and the Deutsche Wetterdienst (…

The influence of decision-making in tree ring-based climate reconstructions.

Tree-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…

Ecological and climatological signals in tree-ring width and density chronologies along a latitudinal boreal transect

ABSTRACTShifts in the climate sensitivity of trees throughout the twentieth century might indicate climate change effects in the boreal forest ecosystem. We here evaluated such potential changes by analyzing six tree-ring width (TRW) and maximum latewood density (MXD) chronologies from northern, central and southern boreal forests in Finland (60°N–69°N). Besides latitudinal effects, differing micro-sites (lakeshore and inland) were considered to evaluate the influence of ground water access on twentieth-century tree-ring formation and climate sensitivity. Overall, the boreal MXD chronologies appeared less affected by micro-site conditions compared to the TRW chronologies. Along the boreal t…

Regional coherency of boreal forest growth defines Arctic driftwood provenancing

Arctic driftwood represents a unique proxy archive at the interface of marine and terrestrial environments. Combined wood anatomical and dendrochronological analyses have been used to detect the origin of driftwood and may allow past timber floating activities, as well as past sea ice and ocean current dynamics to be reconstructed. However, the success of driftwood provenancing studies depends on the length, number, and quality of circumpolar boreal reference chronologies. Here, we introduce a Eurasian-wide high-latitude network of 286 ring width chronologies from the International Tree Ring Data Bank (ITRDB) and 160 additional sites comprising the three main boreal conifers Pinus, Larix, a…

Decadal climate variability of the North Sea during the last millennium reconstructed from bivalve shells (Arctica islandica)

Uninterrupted, annually resolved paleoclimate records are crucial to contextualize the current global change. Such information is particularly relevant for the Europe realm for which weather and climate projections are still very challenging if not virtually impossible. This study presents the first precisely dated, annually resolved, multiregional Arctica islandica chronologies from the North Sea which cover the time interval ad 1040–2010 and contain important information on supra-regional climatic conditions (sea surface temperature (SST), ocean productivity, wind stress). Shell growth varied periodically on timescales of 3–8, 12–16, 28–36, 50–80, and 120–240 years, possibly indicating a…

Ecological and conceptual consequences of Arctic pollution

Although the effect of pollution on forest health and decline received much attention in the 1980s, it has not been considered to explain the ‘Divergence Problem’ in dendroclimatology; a decoupling of tree growth from rising air temperatures since the 1970s. Here we use physical and biogeochemical measurements of hundreds of living and dead conifers to reconstruct the impact of heavy industrialisation around Norilsk in northern Siberia. Moreover, we develop a forward model with surface irradiance forcing to quantify long‐distance effects of anthropogenic emissions on the functioning and productivity of Siberia’s taiga. Downwind from the world’s most polluted Arctic region, tree mortality ra…

Spatio‐temporal patterns of tree growth as related to carbon isotope fractionation in European forests under changing climate

Aim The aim was to decipher Europe‐wide spatio‐temporal patterns of forest growth dynamics and their associations with carbon isotope fractionation processes inferred from tree rings as modulated by climate warming. Location Europe and North Africa (30‒70° N, 10° W‒35° E). Time period 1901‒2003. Major taxa studied Temperate and Euro‐Siberian trees. Methods We characterize changes in the relationship between tree growth and carbon isotope fractionation over the 20th century using a European network consisting of 20 site chronologies. Using indexed tree‐ring widths (TRWi), we assess shifts in the temporal coherence of radial growth across sites (synchrony) for five forest ecosystems (Atlantic…

A 1200+ year reconstruction of temperature extremes for the northeastern Mediterranean region

Proxy evidence is necessary to place current temperature and hydroclimatic changes in a long-term context and to assess the full range of natural and anthropogenic climate forcings. Here, we presen ...

Last millennium northern hemisphere summer temperatures from tree rings: Part I: The long term context

Текст статьи не публикуется в открытом доступе в соответствии с политикой журнала. Large-scale millennial length Northern Hemisphere (NH) temperature reconstructions have been progressively improved over the last 20 years as new datasets have been developed. This paper, and its companion (Part II, Anchukaitis et al. in prep), details the latest tree-ring (TR) based NH land air temperature reconstruction from a temporal and spatial perspective. This work is the first product of a consortium called N-TREND (Northern Hemisphere Tree-Ring Network Development) which brings together dendroclimatologists to identify a collective strategy for improving large-scale summer temperature reconstructions…

Arctic aerosols and the ‘Divergence Problem’ in dendroclimatology

Considering the importance and complexity of natural (e.g., volcanic eruptions and wildfires) and anthropogenic (e.g., mining, oil and shipping industries) aerosol emissions to Arctic warming is particularly timely given the recent temperature extremes recorded at high-northern latitudes (Cohen et al., 2020; Overland and Wang, 2021). Despite our knowledge about the observed and modelled climatic effects of rising Arctic aerosol concentrations (Schmale et al., 2021), which may exhibit regional and seasonal differences and call for diverse research priorities from local to circumpolar scales, we feel that the ecological consequences of an aerosol-induced reduction in surface irradiance (i.e.,…

Climate signals in δ13C of wood lignin methoxyl groups from high-elevation larch trees

Abstract In this study, a barely used method to measure δ13C values from lignin methoxyl groups (δ13Cmethoxyl) of tree‐rings is applied to high alpine larch trees to test their potential as a climate proxy. Thirty-seven larch trees (Larix decidua Mill.) were sampled at a tree line site near Simplon Village in the Valais/Switzerland. Samples were used to measure tree-ring width, and from five individuals, δ13Cmethoxyl was determined at annual resolution from 1971 to 2009, and at pentadal resolution from 1747 to 2009. The physiological tree responses to increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration since 1850 and the corresponding decrease in δ13C (Suess effect) were corrected using a range of pub…

Large-scale, millennial-length temperature reconstructions from tree-rings

Supported by the German Science Foundation, grants # Inst 247/665-1 FUGG and ES 161/9-1. SSG acknowledges support by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, KJA by US National Science Foundation grants AGS-1501856 and NSF AGS-1501834, and JL and LS by the Belmont Forum and JPI-Climate, Collaborative Research Action INTEGRATE. Over the past two decades, the dendroclimate community has produced various annually resolved, warm season temperature reconstructions for the extratropical Northern Hemisphere. Here we compare these tree-ring based reconstructions back to 831 CE and present a set of basic metrics to provide guidance for non-specialists on their interpretation and use. We specifically d…

Filling the Eastern European gap in millennium-long temperature reconstructions

Tree ring–based temperature reconstructions form the scientific backbone of the current global change debate. Although some European records extend into medieval times, high-resolution, long-term, regional-scale paleoclimatic evidence is missing for the eastern part of the continent. Here we compile 545 samples of living trees and historical timbers from the greater Tatra region to reconstruct interannual to centennial-long variations in Eastern European May–June temperature back to 1040 AD. Recent anthropogenic warming exceeds the range of past natural climate variability. Increased plague outbreaks and political conflicts, as well as decreased settlement activities, coincided with tempera…

Tree-ring δ2H values from lignin methoxyl groups indicate sensitivity to European-scale temperature changes

Abstract Stable hydrogen isotope ratios of lignin methoxyl groups (δ2HLM) of wood have been shown to reflect climate-sensitive δ2H values of precipitation (δ2Hprecip). However, a detailed calibration study between high-resolution δ2HLM and δ2Hprecip data has not been performed yet. Here, we present annually resolved δ2HLM values from nine tree-ring series (derived from four Fagus sylvatica L. trees) collected near a station of the Global Isotope Network of Isotopes in Precipitation (GNIP) and the meteorological observatory at Hohenpeisenberg (Germany; ~48°N, 11°E). The nine δ2HLM tree-ring series show highly significant inter-series correlations (Rbar = 0.52) over the common period of overl…

Warfare dendrochronology: Trees witness the deployment of the German battleship Tirpitz in Norway

Abstract War has an immediate and obvious effect on people and communities, but its impacts on local ecology can be more subtle. This paper shows how one military encounter in the Second World War has left a clear legacy in the northern forests of Norway, trackable more than seventy years later. We used annual growth rings of ∼180 pine and ∼30 birch trees as witnesses of the deployment of the German battleship Tirpitz at the Kafjord. The Tirpitz was the target of several Allied air attacks, but the Kriegsmarine (German navy from 1935 to 1945) used artificial smoke, consisting of chlorosulfonic acid and zinc/hexachloroethane, to hide the ship. These smoke-screen actions throughout 1944 cause…

Water-use efficiency and transpiration across European forests during the Anthropocene

Considering the combined effects of CO2 fertilization and climate change drivers on plant physiology leads to a modest increase in simulated European forest transpiration in spite of the effects of CO2-induced stomatal closure. The Earth’s carbon and hydrologic cycles are intimately coupled by gas exchange through plant stomata1,2,3. However, uncertainties in the magnitude4,5,6 and consequences7,8 of the physiological responses9,10 of plants to elevated CO2 in natural environments hinders modelling of terrestrial water cycling and carbon storage11. Here we use annually resolved long-term δ13C tree-ring measurements across a European forest network to reconstruct the physiologically driven r…

Ensemble reconstruction constraints on the global carbon cycle sensitivity to climate

The processes controlling the carbon flux and carbon storage of the atmosphere, ocean and terrestrial biosphere are temperature sensitive and are likely to provide a positive feedback leading to amplified anthropogenic warming. Owing to this feedback, at timescales ranging from interannual to the 20-100-kyr cycles of Earth's orbital variations, warming of the climate system causes a net release of CO(2) into the atmosphere; this in turn amplifies warming. But the magnitude of the climate sensitivity of the global carbon cycle (termed gamma), and thus of its positive feedback strength, is under debate, giving rise to large uncertainties in global warming projections. Here we quantify the med…

Causes and consequences of past and projected Scandinavian summer temperatures, 500-2100 AD

Tree rings dominate millennium-long temperature reconstructions and many records originate from Scandinavia, an area for which the relative roles of external forcing and internal variation on climatic changes are, however, not yet fully understood. Here we compile 1,179 series of maximum latewood density measurements from 25 conifer sites in northern Scandinavia, establish a suite of 36 subset chronologies, and analyse their climate signal. A new reconstruction for the 1483–2006 period correlates at 0.80 with June–August temperatures back to 1860. Summer cooling during the early 17th century and peak warming in the 1930s translate into a decadal amplitude of 2.9°C, which agrees with existin…

Digitizing Historical Plague

Placing unprecedented recent fir growth in a European-wide and Holocene-long context

7 páginas.- Büntgen, U.

Landsat TM/ETM+ and tree-ring based assessment of spatiotemporal patterns of the autumnal moth (Epirrita autumnata) in northernmost Fennoscandia

Abstract We used fine-spatial resolution remotely sensed data combined with tree-ring parameters in order to assess and reconstruct disturbances in mountain birch ( Betula pubescens ) forests caused by Epirrita autumnata (autumnal moth). Research was conducted in the area of Lake Tornetrask in northern Sweden where we utilized five proxy parameters to detect insect outbreak events over the 19th and 20th centuries. Digital change detection was applied on three pairs of multi-temporal NDVI images from Landsat TM/ETM+ to detect significant reductions in the photosynthetic activity of forested areas during disturbed growing seasons. An image segmentation gap-fill procedure was developed in orde…

Climate/growth relationships of Brachystegia spiciformis from the miombo woodland in south central Africa

Abstract We present five Brachystegia spiciformis Benth. (BrSp) tree-ring chronologies from the seasonally dry miombo woodland in south central Africa. Between 9 and 34 stem discs were collected from three dry and two wet miombo sites. All samples showed distinct growth rings, which were marked by terminal parenchyma bands. Site chronologies varied in length between 43 and 149 years. An increase in the number of growth ring anomalies in older trees, however, resulted in an increase in dating error and a decrease in between-tree correlations with increase in the chronology length. Annual precipitation variability accounted for some 28% of the common variance in the BrSp chronologies and we f…

The future of paleoclimate

Our understanding of natural climate variability rapidly declines over the Common Era (CE) as the pre-instrumental temperature amplitude differs substantially among large-scale reconstructions. Highlighting such differences and emphasizing paleoclimatic findings is crucial for placing anthropogenic climate change in a long-term context. We argue that more proxy records are needed to accurately reconstruct first millennium CE temperature variability and value regional studies producing such data.

Timing and duration of European larch growing season along altitudinal gradients in the Swiss Alps.

The 2007 European larch (Larix decidua Mill.) growing season was monitored along two elevational transects in the Lotschental valley in the Swiss Alps. Phenological observations and weekly microcore sampling of 28 larch trees were conducted between April and October 2007 at seven study sites regularly spaced from 1350 to 2150 m a.s.l. on northwest- and southeast-facing slopes. The developmental stages of nearly 75,000 individual cells assessed on 1200 thin sections were used to investigate the links between the trees' thermal regimes and growth phases including the beginning and ending of cell enlargement, wall thickening and maturation of the stem wood. Needles appeared approximately 3-4 w…

A millennium-long perspective on high-elevation pine recruitment in the Spanish central Pyrenees

Long-term fluctuations in forest recruitment, at time scales well beyond the life-span of individual trees, can be related to climate changes. The underlying climatic drivers are, however, often understudied. Here, we present the recruitment history of a high-elevation mountain pine (Pinus uncinata Ram.) forest in the Spanish central Pyrenees throughout the last millennium. A total of 1108 ring-width series translated into a continuous chronology from 924 to 2014 CE, which allowed estimated germination dates of 470 trees to be compared against decadal-scale temperature variability. High recruitment intensity mainly coincided with relatively warm periods in the early 14th, 15th, 19th, and 2…

Temperature Covariance in Tree Ring Reconstructions and Model Simulations Over the Past Millennium

Spatial covariance in the simulated temperature evolution over the past millennium has been reported to exceed that of multiproxy-based reconstructions. Here we use tree ring-based temperature reco ...

The significance of climate variability on early modern European grain prices

AbstractGrain was the most important food source in early modern Europe (c. 1500–1800), and its price influenced the entire economy. The extent to which climate variability determined grain price variations remains contested, and claims of solar cycle influences on prices are disputed. We thoroughly reassess these questions, within a framework of comprehensive statistical analysis, by employing an unprecedentedly large grain price data set together with state-of-the-art palaeoclimate reconstructions and long meteorological series. A highly significant negative grain price–temperature relationship (i.e. colder = high prices and vice versa) is found across Europe. This association increases a…

A 350 year drought reconstruction from Alpine tree ring stable isotopes

[1] Climate reconstructions based on stable isotopes in tree rings rely on the assumption that fractionation-controlling processes are strongly linked to meteorological variables. In this context, we investigated the climate sensitivity of 350 years of carbon and oxygen isotope ratios of tree ring cellulose from European larch obtained at a high-elevation site in the Swiss Alps (∼2100 m above sea level). Unlike tree ring width and maximum latewood density, which contain only summer temperature information at this site, we found that our stable isotope series reveal additionally to temperature a striking sensitivity to precipitation (mainly for carbon) and sunshine duration (mainly for oxyge…

Diverse growth trends and climate responses across Eurasia’s boreal forest

The area covered by boreal forests accounts for similar to 16% of the global and 22% of the Northern Hemisphere landmass. Changes in the productivity and functioning of this circumpolar biome not o ...

Multi-proxy crossdating extends the longest high-elevation tree-ring chronology from the Mediterranean

Climate signals in stable carbon and hydrogen isotopes of lignin methoxy groups from southern German beech trees

Stable hydrogen and carbon isotope ratios of wood lignin methoxy groups (δ13CLM and δ2HLM values) have been shown to be reliable proxies of past temperature variations. Previous studies showed that δ2HLM values even work in temperate environments where classical tree-ring width and maximum latewood density measurements are less successful for climate reconstructions. Here, we analyse the annually resolved δ13CLM values from 1916–2015 of four beech trees (Fagus sylvatica) from a temperate site near Hohenpeißenberg in southern Germany and compare these data with regional- to continental-scale climate observations. Initial δ13CLM values were corrected for the Suess effect (a decrease of δ13C i…

Uniform climate sensitivity in tree-ring stable isotopes across species and sites in a mid-latitude temperate forest.

Tree-ring stable isotopes, providing insight into drought-induced eco-physiological mechanisms, are frequently used to reconstruct past changes in growing season temperature and precipitation. Their climatic response is, however, still not fully understood, particularly for data originating from non-extreme, mid-latitude environments with differing ecological conditions. Here, we assess the response of δ(13)C, δ(18)O and tree-ring width (TRW) from a temperate mountain forest in the Austrian pre-Alps to climate and specific drought events. Variations in stem growth and isotopic composition of Norway spruce, common beech and European larch from dry, medium and moist sites are compared with re…

High-elevation inter-site differences in Mount Smolikas tree-ring width data

Abstract We present the longest high-elevation tree-ring width dataset in the Mediterranean reaching back to the 6th century CE. The network includes 101 living and 92 relict Pinus heldreichii Christ trees from four differently exposed sites in the 2100–2200 m a.s.l. elevation range of Mt. Smolikas in the Pindus Mountains in Greece. Though the sites were all sampled within a distance of 1550–2014  = 0.65–0.87), indicating site exposure might affect tree-ring formation. We here explore the consequence of exposure differences on the climate signals in an eastern Mediterranean treeline ecotone. Temporally stable growth/climate relationships reveal similar seasonal patterns among the four sites…

Blue intensity and density from northern Fennoscandian tree rings, exploring the potential to improve summer temperature reconstructions with earlywood information

Abstract. Here we explore two new tree-ring parameters, derived from measurements of wood density and blue intensity (BI). The new proxies show an increase in the interannual summer temperature signal compared to established proxies, and present the potential to improve long-term performance. At high latitudes, where tree growth is mainly limited by low temperatures, radiodensitometric measurements of wood density, specifically maximum latewood density (MXD), provides a temperature proxy that is superior to that of tree-ring widths. The high cost of developing MXD has led to experimentation with a less expensive method using optical flatbed scanners to produce a new proxy, herein referred t…

Vulnerability of Norway spruce to climate change in mountain forests of the European Alps

Mountain forests offer a range of socio-economic and ecological services, e.g. provid- ing wood harvest products, serving as hotspots of biodiversity and fulfilling protective functions. In the European Alps, where these environments are dominated by drought-sensitive Norway spruce, it has been questioned whether these services can be secured in the substantially warmer and drier climates predicted for the mid-to-late 21st century. Here, we compile a tree-ring width network of 500 spruce trees from the Northern Limestone Alps to assess growth reactions to drought events and evaluate the long-term impact of the recent temperature shift through ana - lyses along elevational transects. Our dat…

Reassessing the evidence for tree-growth and inferred temperature change during the Common Era in Yamalia, northwest Siberia

AbstractThe development of research into the history of tree growth and inferred summer temperature changes in Yamalia spanning the last 2000 years is reviewed. One focus is the evolving production of tree-ring width (TRW) and tree-ring maximum-latewood density (MXD) larch (Larix sibirica) chronologies, incorporating different applications of Regional Curve Standardisation (RCS). Another focus is the comparison of independent data representing past tree growth in adjacent Yamalia areas: Yamal and Polar Urals, and the examination of the evidence for common growth behaviour at different timescales. The sample data we use are far more numerous and cover a longer time-span at Yamal compared to …

Reconstruction of late Holocene autumn/winter precipitation variability in SW Romania from a high-resolution speleothem trace element record

We present the first high-resolution trace element (Mg/Ca, Sr/Ca, Ba/Ca) record from a stalagmite in southwestern Romania covering the last 3.6 ka, which provides the potential for quantitative climate reconstruction. Precise age control is based on three independent dating methods, in particular for the last 250 yr, where chemical lamina counting is combined with the identification of the 20th century radiocarbon bomb peak and Th-230/U dating. Long-term cave monitoring and model simulations of drip water and speleothem elemental variability indicate that precipitation-related processes are the main drivers of speleothem Mg/Ca ratios. Calibration against instrumental climate data shows a si…

2500 Years of European Climate Variability and Human Susceptibility

Climate variations influenced the agricultural productivity, health risk, and conflict level of preindustrial societies. Discrimination between environmental and anthropogenic impacts on past civilizations, however, remains difficult because of the paucity of high-resolution paleoclimatic evidence. We present tree ring-based reconstructions of central European summer precipitation and temperature variability over the past 2500 years. Recent warming is unprecedented, but modern hydroclimatic variations may have at times been exceeded in magnitude and duration. Wet and warm summers occurred during periods of Roman and medieval prosperity. Increased climate variability from similar to 250 to 6…

Micro-site conditions affect Fennoscandian forest growth

Abstract The long tradition of dendroclimatological studies in Fennoscandia is fostered by the exceptional longevity and temperature sensitivity of tree growth, as well as the existence of well-preserved subfossil wood in shallow lakes and extent peat bogs. Although some of the world’s longest ring width and density-based climate reconstructions have been developed in northern Fennoscandia, it is still unclear if differences in micro-site ecology matter, and if so, whether they have been considered sufficiently in previous studies. We developed a Fennoscandia-wide network of 44 Scots pine ring width chronologies from 22 locations between 59°–70 °N and 16°–31 °E, to assess the effects of moi…

Removing the relocation bias from the 155-year Haparanda temperature record in Northern Europe

The village Haparanda in northern Sweden hosts one of the longest meteorological station records in Europe depicting climate conditions in the subarctic. Since the station was relocated several times, moving gradually from urbanized to more rural areas, the record is likely biased by anthropogenic influences. We here assess these influences and demonstrate that even in villages urban heat island biases might affect the temperature readings. We detail a method to quantify this bias and remove it from the long Haparanda station record running since 1859. The correction is based on parallel temperature measurements at previous station locations in Haparanda. These measurements revealed a disti…

A 1286‐year hydro‐climate reconstruction for the Balkan Peninsula

We present a June-July drought reconstruction based on the standardized precipitation index (SPI) for the Balkan Peninsula over the period 730-2015 CE. The reconstruction is developed using a compo ...

Summer Cooling Driven by Large Volcanic Eruptions over the Tibetan Plateau

Large volcanic eruptions may cause abrupt summer cooling over large parts of the globe. However, no comparable imprint has been found on the Tibetan Plateau (TP). Here, we introduce a 400-yr-long temperature-sensitive network of 17 tree-ring maximum latewood density sites from the TP that demonstrates that the effects of tropical eruptions on the TP are generally greater than those of extratropical eruptions. Moreover, we found that large tropical eruptions accompanied by subsequent El Niño events caused less summer cooling than those that occurred without El Niño association. Superposed epoch analysis (SEA) based on 27 events, including 14 tropical eruptions and 13 extratropical eruptions,…

Past millennium hydroclimate variability from Corsican pine tree‐ring chronologies

Corrigendum: A new archive of large volcanic events over the past millennium derived from reconstructed summer temperatures (2017 Environ. Res. Lett. 12 094005)

Long-term summer temperature variations in the Pyrenees from detrended stable carbon isotopes

Abstract Substantial effort has recently been put into the development of climate reconstructions from tree-ring stable carbon isotopes, though the interpretation of long-term trends retained in such timeseries remains challenging. Here we use detrended δ13C measurements in Pinus uncinata tree-rings, from the Spanish Pyrenees, to reconstruct decadal variations in summer temperature back to the 13th century. The June-August temperature signal of this reconstruction is attributed using decadally as well as annually resolved, 20th century δ13C data. Results indicate that late 20th century warming has not been unique within the context of the past 750 years. Our reconstruction contains greater …

Using Land Cover, Population, and Night Light Data for Assessing Local Temperature Differences in Mainz, Germany

AbstractUrban areas are believed to affect temperature readings, thereby biasing the estimation of twentieth-century warming at regional to global scales. The precise effect of changes in the surroundings of meteorological stations, particularly gradual changes due to urban growth, is difficult to determine. In this paper, data from 10 temperature stations within 15 km of the city of Mainz (Germany) over a period of 842 days are examined to assess the connection between temperature and the properties of the station surroundings, considering (i) built/paved area surface coverage, (ii) population, and (iii) night light intensity. These properties were examined in circles with increasing radii…

Spectral biases in tree-ring climate proxies

Seamless quantification of past and present climate variability is needed to understand the Earth’s climate well enough to make accurate predictions for the future. This study addresses whether tree-ring-dominated proxy data properly represent the frequency spectrum of true climate variability. The results challenge the validity of detection and attribution investigations based on these data. External forcing and internal dynamics result in climate system variability ranging from sub-daily weather to multi-centennial trends and beyond1,2. State-of-the-art palaeoclimatic methods routinely use hydroclimatic proxies to reconstruct temperature (for example, refs 3, 4), possibly blurring differe…

electronic supplementary material from Plants in the UK flower a month earlier under recent warming

figures S1-S5

Five centuries of Central European temperature extremes reconstructed from tree-ring density and documentary evidence

Future climate change will likely influence the frequency and intensity of weather extremes. As such events are by definition rare, long records are required to understand their characteristics, drivers, and consequences on ecology and society. Herein we provide a unique perspective on regional-scale temperature extremes over the past millennium, using three tree-ring maximum latewood density (MXD) chronologies from higher elevations in the European Alps. We verify the tree-ring-based extremes using documentary evidences from Switzerland, the Czech Republic, and Central Europe that allowed the identification of 44 summer extremes over the 1550-2003 period. These events include cold temperat…

Low-frequency noise inδ13C andδ18O tree ring data: A case study ofPinus uncinatain the Spanish Pyrenees

[1] Isotopic discrimination measurements in tree rings are becoming increasingly important estimators of past environmental change. Potential biases inherent to these parameters, including age trend and level offset are, however, not well understood. We here perform measurements on a new millennium-long data set of decadally resolved δ18O and δ13C discrimination from 25 high-elevation pine trees in the Spanish Pyrenees to investigate whether such low-frequency biases exist and how they alter the long-term behavior of derived time series. Alignment of the tree ring data by biological age reveals age trends over the first one to four centuries after germination. On average, isotope values cha…

Comparison of stable carbon and oxygen isotopes in Picea glauca tree rings and Sphagnum fuscum moss remains from subarctic Canada

AbstractStable isotope ratios from tree rings and peatland mosses have become important proxies of past climate variations. We here compare recent stable carbon and oxygen isotope ratios in cellulose of tree rings from white spruce (Picea glauca), growing near the arctic tree line; and cellulose of Sphagnum fuscum stems, growing in a hummock of a subarctic peatland, in west-central Canada. Results show that carbon isotopes in S. fuscum correlate significantly with July temperatures over the past ~20 yr. The oxygen isotopes correlate with both summer temperature and precipitation. Analyses of the tree-ring isotopes revealed summer temperatures to be the main controlling factor for carbon iso…

Reduced Temperature Sensitivity of Maximum Latewood Density Formation in High-Elevation Corsican Pines under Recent Warming

Maximum latewood density (MXD) measurements from long-lived Black pines (Pinus nigra spp. laricio) growing at the upper treeline in Corsica are one of the few archives to reconstruct southern European summer temperatures at annual resolution back into medieval times. Here, we present a compilation of five MXD chronologies from Corsican pines that contain high-to-low frequency variability between 1168 and 2016 CE and correlate significantly (p &lt

δ2H, δ13C and δ18O from whole wood,α-cellulose and lignin methoxyl groups inPinus sylvestris: a multi-parameter approach

Novel tree ring parameters – δ13C and δ2H from methoxyl groups – have been developed to reconstruct palaeoclimate. Tests with δ13C and δ18O derived from whole wood and cellulose samples, however, indicated differences in the isotopic composition and climate signal, depending on the extracted wood component. We assess this signal dependency by analysing (i) δ13C and δ18O from whole wood and cellulose and (ii) δ13C and δ2H from methoxyl groups, using Pinus sylvestris L. growing near Altenkirchen (Germany). Results indicate significant correlations among the time series derived from whole wood, cellulose, and lignin methoxyl groups. Compared with the whole wood samples, δ13C from methoxyl grou…

Climate Sensitivity and Parameter Coherency in Annually Resolved δ13C and δ18O from Pinus uncinata Tree-Ring Data in the Spanish Pyrenees

We explore the 20th century climate sensitivity of annually resolved carbon and oxygen isotope ratios in five Pinus uncinata individuals from the upper treeline in similar to 2400 m asl of the Span ...

Annual 14C Tree-Ring Data Around 400 AD: Mid- and High-Latitude Records

ABSTRACTTwo tree-ring series, one from a high-latitude pine tree (located in northern Scandinavia) and one from a mid-latitude oak tree (located in eastern Germany) were analyzed for radiocarbon (14C) at annual resolution. The new records cover the calendar date ranges 290–460 AD and 382–486 AD, respectively, overlapping by 79 yr. The series show similar trends as IntCal13. However, some significant deviations around 400 AD are present with lower Δ14C (higher 14C ages). An average offset between the two new series and IntCal13 of about 20 years in conventional 14C age is observed. A latitudinal 14C offset between the tree sites in central and northern Europe, as would be expected due to the…

Variability and extremes of northern Scandinavian summer temperatures over the past two millennia

article i nfo Palaeoclimatic evidence revealed synchronous temperature variations among Northern Hemisphere regions over the past millennium. The range of these variations (in degrees Celsius) is, however, largely unknown. We here present a 2000-year summer temperature reconstruction from northern Scandinavia and compare this timeseries with existing proxy records to assess the range of reconstructed temperatures at a regional scale. The new reconstruction is based on 578 maximum latewood density profiles from living and sub-fossil Pinus sylvestris samples from northern Sweden and Finland. The record provides evidence for sub- stantial warmth during Roman and Medieval times, larger in exten…

Testing the hypothesis of post-volcanic missing rings in temperature sensitive dendrochronological data

a b s t r a c t The precise, annual dating control, inherent to dendrochronology, has recently been questioned through a combined analysis of tree-growth and coupled climate models (Mann et al. (2012; hereafter MAN12)) suggesting single tree-rings in temperature limited environments are missing following large volcanic events. We test this hypothesis of missing, post-volcanic rings by using a compilation of maximum late- wood density (MXD) records that are typically used for reconstructing temperature and the detection of volcanic events, together with a unique set of long instrumental station data from Europe reaching back into the early 18th century. We investigate the temporal coherence …

Freshwater pearl mussels from northern Sweden serve as long-term, high-resolution stream water isotope recorders

The stable isotope composition of lacustrine sediments is routinely used to infer Late Holocene changes in precipitation over Scandinavia and, ultimately, atmospheric circulation dynamics in the North Atlantic realm. However, such archives only provide a low temporal resolution (ca. 15 years), precluding the ability to identify changes on inter-annual and quasi-decadal timescales. Here, we present a new, high-resolution reconstruction using shells of freshwater pearl mussels, Margaritifera margaritifera, from three streams in northern Sweden. We present seasonally to annually resolved, calendar-aligned stable oxygen and carbon isotope data from 10 specimens, covering the time interval from …

Climate signal age effects in boreal tree-rings: Lessons to be learned for paleoclimatic reconstructions

Abstract Age-related alternation in the sensitivity of tree-ring width (TRW) to climate variability has been reported for different forest species and environments. The resulting growth-climate response patterns are, however, often inconsistent and similar assessments using maximum latewood density (MXD) are still missing. Here, we analyze climate signal age effects (CSAE, age-related changes in the climate sensitivity of tree growth) in a newly aggregated network of 692 Pinus sylvestris L. TRW and MXD series from northern Fennoscandia. Although summer temperature sensitivity of TRW ( r All  = 0.48) ranges below that of MXD ( r All  = 0.76), it declines for both parameters as cambial age in…

Extraterrestrial confirmation of tree-ring dating

Central European agroclimate over the past 2,000 years

Abstract Central Europe has experienced a sequence of unprecedented summer droughts since 2015, which had considerable effects on the functioning and productivity of natural and agricultural systems. Placing these recent extremes in a long-term context of natural climate variability is, however, constrained by the limited length of observational records. Here, we use tree-ring stable oxygen and carbon isotopes to develop annually resolved reconstructions of growing season temperature and summer moisture variability for central Europe during the past 2,000 years. Both records are independently interpolated across the southern Czech Republic and northeastern Austria to produce explicit estima…

Towards a dendrochronologically refined date of the Laacher See eruption around 13,000 years ago

Highlights • Previous age estimates of the Laacher See Eruptions (LSE) around 12,900 years are still diverging and imprecise. • The combination of dendrochronology, wood anatomy, and 14C measurements holds the potential to establish a precise LSE date. • An absolute calendric date of the LSE would improve the synchronization of European Late Glacial to Holocene archives. Abstract The precise date of the Laacher See eruption (LSE), central Europe’s largest Late Pleistocene volcanic event that occurred around 13,000 years ago, is still unknown. Here, we outline the potential of combined high-resolution dendrochronological, wood anatomical and radiocarbon (14C) measurements, to refine the age …

Concord and discord among Northern Hemisphere paleotemperature reconstructions from tree rings

Abstract We review the current generation of large-scale, millennial-length temperature reconstructions derived from tree rings and highlight areas of agreement and disagreement among these state-of-the-art paleotemperature estimates. Although thousands of tree ring-width chronologies are now available from temperate and boreal forest sites across the Northern Hemisphere, only a small fraction of those records are suited as proxies for surface temperature. Maximum latewood density is clearly a superior temperature proxy but is less available, with few densitometric records that are both long and up-to-date. Compared to previous efforts, the newest generation of tree-ring reconstructions cor…

Effects of host abundance on larch budmoth outbreaks in the European Alps

Outbreaks of the larch budmoth (LBM) in the European Alps are among the most documented population cycles and their historical occurrence has been reconstructed over 1200 years. Causes and consequences of cyclic LBM outbreaks are poorly understood and little is known about populations near the margin of the host's distribution range. In the present study, we quantify historical LBM outbreaks and associated growth reductions in host trees (European larch). Tree-ring data collected from 18 sites between approximately 500 and 1700 m a.s.l. in the Northern pre-Alps are compared with data from the Western Alps and Tatra Mountains, as well as with nonhost Norway spruce. Highly synchronized host a…

Development of tree-ring maximum latewood density chronologies for the western Tien Shan Mountains, China: Influence of detrending method and climate response

a b s t r a c t Three tree-ring maximum latewood density chronologies were developed from high elevation Picea schrenkiana sites in the western Tien Shan Mountains using different detrending methods. The new chro- nologies extend back to the early 16th and late 17th centuries, and contain significant late spring and summer temperature signals, respectively. An assessment of varying detrending methods and band-pass filtering the chronologies revealed only slightly differing low frequency trends retained in the maximum latewood densities. The distance between sampling sites and the varying seasonality of limiting climatic factors are identified as key drivers affecting the correlation among t…

Summer drought reconstruction in northeastern Spain inferred from a tree ring latewood network since 1734

Drought recurrence in the Mediterranean is regarded as a fundamental factor for socio-economic development and the resilience of natural systems in context of global change. However, knowledge of past droughts has been hampered by the absence of high-resolution proxies. We present a drought reconstruction for the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula based on a new dendrochronology network considering the Standardized Evapotranspiration Precipitation Index (SPEI). A total of 774 latewood width series from 387 trees of P. sylvestris and P. uncinata were combined in an inter-regional chronology. The new chronology, calibrated against gridded climate data, reveals a robust relationship with the S…

Moroccan speleothem and tree ring records suggest a variable positive state of the North Atlantic Oscillation during the Medieval Warm Period

We present a magnesium (Mg) and strontium (Sr) record from an aragonitic speleothem (Grotte de Piste, Morocco, 34‬°N; 04°W) providing a reconstruction of effective rainfall from 619 to 1962 AD. The corresponding drip site was monitored over 2 yr for drip water Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca ratios. Results show evidence for prior aragonite precipitation, which can explain negative correlations between speleothem Mg and Sr concentrations. The data shown here have important climate implications concerning the evolution of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). A comparison of the stalagmite data from Grotte de Piste with an updated tree ring based drought reconstruction from Morocco and other NAO related pro…

Modified climate with long term memory in tree ring proxies

ABSTRACT : A contribution to the PAGES Asia2k Working Group. ABSTRACT: Long term memory (LTM) scaling behavior in worldwide tree ring proxies and subsequent climate reconstructions is analyzed for and compared with the memory structure inherent to instrumental temperature and precipitation data. Detrended fluctuation analysis is employed to detect LTM and its scaling exponent a is used to evaluate LTM. The results show that temperature and precipitation reconstructions based on ring width measurements (mean \alpha =0.8) contain more memory than records based on maximum latewood density (mean \alpha =0.7). Both exceed the memory inherent to regional instrumental data (\alpha =0.6 for tempera…

Stable carbon isotope ratios of tree-ring cellulose from the site network of the EU-Project ‘ISONET’

The ISONET project has been striving to improve greatly our understanding of European climate systems providing independent quantitative data for model verification and policy making. A network of 24 sites provides dendrochronological coverage from Iberia to Fennoscandia, Caledonia and the Tyrol. The stable isotope (C, H, O) ratios of these annually resolved time series shall be analysed within this project, to reconstruct past climate regimes (temperature, relative humidity and precipitation characteristics) for the last 400 years. Climate variability shall be addressed on three timescales; decade-century (source water/air mass dominance); inter-annual (quantifying baseline variability, ex…

(Table 1) Stable oxygen and carbon isotopic ratios of tree rings, and tree ring width of white spruce (Picea glauca), Ennadai Lake

Stable isotope ratios from tree rings and peatland mosses have become important proxies of past climate variations. We here compare recent stable carbon and oxygen isotope ratios in cellulose of tree rings from white spruce (Picea glauca), growing near the arctic tree line; and cellulose of Sphagnum fuscum stems, growing in a hummock of a subarctic peatland, in west-central Canada. Results show that carbon isotopes in S. fuscum correlate significantly with July temperatures over the past ~20 yr. The oxygen isotopes correlate with both summer temperature and precipitation. Analyses of the tree-ring isotopes revealed summer temperatures to be the main controlling factor for carbon isotope var…

Stable oxygen isotope ratios of tree-ring cellulose from the site network of the EU-Project ‘ISONET’

24 European annually resolved stable isotope chronologies have been constructed from tree ring cellulose for the last 400 years (1600CE – 2003CE) for carbon and oxygen and for the last 100 years for hydrogen. Data was produced within the ISONET project (400 Years of Annual Reconstructions of European Climate Variability Using a Highly Resolved Isotopic Network,) to initiate an extensive spatiotemporal tree-ring stable isotope network across Europe funded as part of the fifth EC Framework Programme “Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development”. This data set comprises the ISONET δ18O records.