Inferred summer precipitation for southern Ontario back to AD 610, as reconstructed from ring widths of Thuja occidentalis
| Autor: | Douglas W. Larson, Peter E. Kelly, Rob Wilson, Edward R. Cook, Brendan M. Buckley |
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| Rok vydání: | 2004 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Canadian Journal of Forest Research. 34:2541-2553 |
| ISSN: | 1208-6037 0045-5067 |
| DOI: | 10.1139/x04-129 |
| Popis: | We present a network of seven ring-width chronologies of eastern white-cedar (Thuja occidentalis L.) from the Niagara Escarpment in southern Ontario, Canada. Using principal component regression, a 350-year June-July pre- cipitation reconstruction (SOR) is developed for the region. Prior to the 20th century, the SOR series shows reasonable coherence, particularly at the decadal scale, with an independent tree-ring-based reconstruction of the Palmer drought severity index (PDSI) for roughly the same region. A weakening of the tree-growth - climate relationship in recent de- cades results in a regression model explaining 21% of the variance in the original climate series when the recent data are used for calibration. We therefore compromise with a model, calibrated for the period 1900-1960, which explains 33% of the variance. The model, while not terribly strong, does pass verification tests, indicating some degree of pre- dictive skill. The longest chronology in our network, the 2787-year Flowerpot Island (FLOW) chronology, also exhibits common variability with the PDSI reconstruction, particularly on decadal and longer time scales and was used to infer hydroclimatic conditions back to AD 610. The combined information of the SOR, PDSI, and FLOW series suggests that dry conditions existed for the periods 1700-1725, 1750-1800, and 1840-1900, and wet conditions for the periods 1675-1700, 1730-1750, and 1810-1840. Over longer time scales, the FLOW chronology shows that summer precipita- tion was particularly variable during the 7th, 9th, 13th, and 16th centuries. Resume : Les auteurs presentent un reseau compose de sept courbes dendrochronologiques du thuya occidental (Thuja occidentalis L.) provenant de l'escarpement du Niagara dans le sud de l'Ontario, au Canada. A l'aide de la regression en composantes principales, ils ont reconstitue les precipitations en juin et juillet depuis 350 ans (SOR) pour cette re- gion. Avant le 20 e siecle, la courbe SOR est raisonnablement coherente, particulierement a l'echelle decennale, avec une reconstitution independante de l'indice de severite de secheresse de Palmer (ISSP) pour a peu pres la meme re |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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