Dendrochronological studies to reconstruct last millennium climatic variations in the Central Italian Alps

The ongoing increase in the global mean temperature at an unprecedented recorded rate is well documented. High-elevation landscapes are among the most strongly affected environment by ongoing climate change. In fact, in the European Alps, as well as in other mountain chains, the cryosphere is experimenting a widespread withdrawal of glaciers and the biosphere suffers fast changes in biomes. Albeit the anthropic origin of the actual climate changes is undeniable, the knowledge of past climate variations is fundamental to better understand the amplitude of this phenomena. Nevertheless, high-elevation areas often lack climatic instrumental series longer than one hundred years, and global datasets cannot represent local variations accurately. Thus, proxy data, such as tree-ring chronologies, can be powerful tools and source of information to better understand the past environmental dynamics and climatic variations that have occurred in remote and sensitive sites. Since 2000s the University of Pisa laboratory for dendrochronology conducts analysis on samples coming from high-elevation landscape in the Italian Alps. This approach, by means of dendroclimatic reconstruction based on wood physical parameters, allows to define and better understand the temperature history of remote areas in climatic and glaciological key sectors of the Alps.