Increasing temperatures over the last decades are well established. To place the ongoing climate change in a long-term context, climate information extending beyond the industrial era is needed. Many regional climate reconstructions have facilitated our understanding of past climate dynamics. Furthermore, local reconstructions are essential to enhance regional climate models by improving the spatiotemporal data coverage back in time. The Alpine region is a key area in terms of impacts of climate change, which is especially evident in the reduction of glacier extents. The use of maximum latewood density (MXD) chronologies can provide a better temperature information than the tree-ring width, nevertheless MXD series in this area are still characterized by a considerable lack. To investigate the potential of deriving high-quality temperature information from the Rhaetian Alps, 12 Pinus cembra L. trees, sampled at around 2000 m a.s.l., were used to construct a MXD chronology. The chronology spanned from 1780 to 2015 and its potential as a temperature proxy was assessed. The correlation between the standard (residual) chronology and CRU-TS 3.24 temperature data, shows that the MXD was significantly correlated with May and July-September (May and August-September) mean maximum temperatures during the last century. Thus, contrary to MXD data from higher latitudes, MXD in this study does not contain information of an extended growing season (April-September). Still, our results underline the potential of Pinus cembra to reconstruct mean maximum temperature variations, especially during the latter part of the growing season, providing additional information on months not inferred by other species. Future studies on MXD of this species will further increase the temporal and spatial data availability allowing detailed climate reconstructions.

Pinus cembra L. maximum wood density records late summer maximum temperatures in the Ortles-Cevedale Group (Rhaetian Alps, Italy)

Cerrato R.
Primo
;
GUNNARSON, BJÖRN ERIK
Secondo
;
LINDERHOLM, HANS WILHELM;Salvatore M. C.
Penultimo
;
Baroni C.
Ultimo
2017-01-01

Abstract

Increasing temperatures over the last decades are well established. To place the ongoing climate change in a long-term context, climate information extending beyond the industrial era is needed. Many regional climate reconstructions have facilitated our understanding of past climate dynamics. Furthermore, local reconstructions are essential to enhance regional climate models by improving the spatiotemporal data coverage back in time. The Alpine region is a key area in terms of impacts of climate change, which is especially evident in the reduction of glacier extents. The use of maximum latewood density (MXD) chronologies can provide a better temperature information than the tree-ring width, nevertheless MXD series in this area are still characterized by a considerable lack. To investigate the potential of deriving high-quality temperature information from the Rhaetian Alps, 12 Pinus cembra L. trees, sampled at around 2000 m a.s.l., were used to construct a MXD chronology. The chronology spanned from 1780 to 2015 and its potential as a temperature proxy was assessed. The correlation between the standard (residual) chronology and CRU-TS 3.24 temperature data, shows that the MXD was significantly correlated with May and July-September (May and August-September) mean maximum temperatures during the last century. Thus, contrary to MXD data from higher latitudes, MXD in this study does not contain information of an extended growing season (April-September). Still, our results underline the potential of Pinus cembra to reconstruct mean maximum temperature variations, especially during the latter part of the growing season, providing additional information on months not inferred by other species. Future studies on MXD of this species will further increase the temporal and spatial data availability allowing detailed climate reconstructions.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11568/1000358
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