1. Climatic significance of tree-ring width and δ13C in a Spanish pine forest network.
- Author
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ANDREU, LAIA, PLANELLS, OCTAVI, GUTIÉRREZ, EMILIA, HELLE, GERHARD, and SCHLESER, GERHARD H.
- Subjects
TREE-rings ,PRECIPITATION variability ,CLIMATE change ,FOREST microclimatology ,VEGETATION & climate - Abstract
This paper examines tree-ring width and δ
13 C chronologies from a network of five Iberian pine forests to determine their sensitivity to climate variability under different site conditions. Interseries comparisons revealed better and more homogenous agreement among δ13 C records than among tree-ring width series of the different sites. This suggests that δ13 C ratios may preferentially record large-scale climatic signals, whereas ring-width variations may reflect more local factors. A negative relationship was found between ring-width and δ13 C. As inferred from response function analyses, ring-width and δ13 C showed significant relationships with climate. The analyses of different sites and species revealed unshared tree-ring width responses to summer temperature and precipitation, whereas all δ13 C series were highly sensitive to current year summer precipitation and, to a lesser extent, to current summer temperature. A strong summer precipitation signal seems to dominate the δ13 C of trees growing under Mediterranean climate, even when the mean climatic site conditions do not indicate distinct summer drought. Therefore, δ13 C values reflect precipitation variability during the summer season better than tree-ring widths. This demonstrates that δ13 C from tree-rings can be a very useful tool for climatic reconstruction in the Mediterranean region, especially when climate-growth relationships are weak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]- Published
- 2008
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