Developments in Paleoenvironmental Research

(1)

(2)

Developments in Paleoenvironmental Research

VOLUME 11

Aims and Scope:

Paleoenvironmental research continues to enjoy tremendous interest and progress in the scientific community. The overall aims and scope of the Developments in Paleo-environmental Research book series is to capture this excitement and document these developments. Volumes related to any aspect of paleoenvironmental research, encompassing any time period, are within the scope of the series. For example, relevant topics include studies focused on terrestrial, peatland, lacustrine, riverine, estuarine, and marine systems, ice cores, cave deposits, palynology, isotopes, geochemistry, sedimentology, paleontology, etc. Methodological and taxonomic volumes relevant to paleoenvironmental research are also encouraged. The series will include edited volumes on a particular subject, geographic region, or time period, conference and workshop proceedings, as well as monographs. Prospective authors and/or editors should consult the series editor for more details. The series editor also welcomes any comments or suggestions for future volumes.

EDITOR AND BOARD OF ADVISORS

Series Editor:

John P. Smol, Queen’s University, Canada

Advisory Board:

Keith Alverson, Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), UNESCO,

France

H. John B. Birks, University of Bergen and Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research,

Norway

Raymond S. Bradley, University of Massachusetts, USA Glen M. MacDonald, University of California, USA

For further volumes:

(3)

Dendroclimatology

Progress and Prospects

Edited by

Malcolm K. Hughes

University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

Thomas W. Swetnam

University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

Henry F. Diaz

University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

(4)

Editors

Prof. Malcolm K. Hughes University of Arizona

Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research 85721 Tucson Arizona

USA

[email protected]

Prof. Thomas W. Swetnam University of Arizona

Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research 85721 Tucson Arizona

USA

[email protected] Prof. Henry F. Diaz

University Colorado CIRES Broadway 325 80305-3328 Boulder Colorado USA [email protected] ISSN 1571-5299 ISBN 978-1-4020-4010-8 e-ISBN 978-1-4020-5725-0 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-5725-0

Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010936678 © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.

Cover illustration: Inner rings (first ring AD 521) of a Douglas-fir beam from Broken Flute Cave, Arizona.

Photo by Thomas W. Swetnam, copyright Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, The University of Arizona. Printed on acid-free paper

(5)

Preface

This collection is the latest of a series of efforts to evaluate the contributions of dendroclimatology, the study of past climate using tree rings, to climatology and to other fields and activities. The origins of dendroclimatology as a collabora-tive international field may be traced to two meetings held at the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research (LTRR), University of Arizona, in April 1974 and June 1977. The First International Workshop on Dendroclimatology (April 1974), inspired and organized by Harold C. Fritts, set the scene for a scientific venture of remark-able ambition—the development of networks of fully dated, adequately replicated, and documented tree-ring chronologies throughout the temperate and subarctic regions of both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. It was at this meeting, attended by scientists from ten countries, that the International Tree-Ring Data Bank (ITRDB) was established, with an interim committee chaired by Fritts and includ-ing Bernd Becker (Germany), Zdzisaw Bednarz (Poland), Jon Pilcher (UK), and Charles Stockton (USA). The foundation of the ITRDB (now part of the World Data Center for Paleoclimatology, operated by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA), signaled the acceptance by most of the active practition-ers around the world of a shared minimum set of criteria for the development and recording of dendroclimatic data. This in turn made it possible to conceive of many individual efforts, leading to the establishment of internally consistent networks at national, continental, and eventually, global scales.

The June 1977 meeting, organized with the support of the National Science Foundation (NSF), had the goal of reviewing Harold Fritts’s pioneering dendro-climatic reconstruction projects. Most of the participants at the meeting were climatologists interested in a topic that had received very little attention up to that time—high-resolution paleoclimatology. Those present included Roger Barry, Ray Bradley, Henry Diaz, Mick Kelly, John Kutzbach, Murray Mitchell, Jr., and Harry van Loon. The meeting led to several productive long-term scientific collaborations, which in turn led to, among other things, the creation of baseline comprehensive instrumental climate databases for studying climatic variations over the past century and a half. From today’s viewpoint, it is difficult to imagine how little was known about interannual- to century-scale variability in the climate system at that time, with published sketches of the spectrum of climatic variability exhibiting little or no power between bidecadal and millennial frequencies. Recall, the El Niño/Southern

(6)

vi Preface

Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon was not as well understood then as it is now, and the view of longer fluctuations had changed little since the early twentieth-century work of Sir Gilbert Walker. The last 35 years have seen an extraordinary growth of interest in the very topics of climatology and broader environmental sci-ence to which tree-ring studies can contribute most—variability on interannual to century timescales. The tree-ring record has become more and more important to the understanding of the climate system as we learn about things like decadal and longer patterns, and it is central to the issue of whether current climate changes are extraordinary, and if so, on what scale.

This volume arose from a workshop titled, ‘Tree Rings and Climate: Sharpening the Focus,’ held in Tucson, Arizona, April 6–9, 2004, although it contains much material developed since the workshop. There were forty oral presentations and twenty-two poster presentations at the workshop, with participants coming from many countries, and including ‘users’ of dendroclimatic information, such as cli-matologists, as well as ‘producers.’ The primary aim of the meeting was to review what has been learned, by using tree rings, about natural climate variabil-ity and its environmental and social impacts. This was done by reviewing and synthesizing the results of the last 35 years, and identifying the strengths and weak-nesses of dendroclimatology and the needs for and the opportunities for future work. Thanks are due to the following bodies for financial and other support for the meeting, and hence for making this volume possible: the Paleoclimatology Program in the Division of Atmospheric Sciences at the US National Science Foundation; the Climate Change Data and Detection Program, US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; the Past Global Changes (PAGES) project of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program; the Institute for the Study of Planet Earth, University of Arizona; the Office of the Vice President for Research, University of Arizona; and the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona.

We are also particularly grateful to the colleagues who kindly undertook the task of providing peer reviews for the chapters in this collection, and to the authors for their good grace in awaiting its publication. Diana Miller has done us all a great favor by her meticulous and constructive copyediting of the manuscripts.

Finally, thanks are due to those who set this ball rolling: Andrew Douglass in the early twentieth century, Edward Schulman and Bruno Huber in the mid-twentieth century, and, notably, Harold C. Fritts, who made the global venture possible, and to whom this volume is dedicated.

Tucson, Arizona Malcolm K. Hughes

Tucson, Arizona Thomas W. Swetnam

(7)

Ricardo Villalba, Brian H. Luckman, Jose Boninsegna, Rosanne D. D’Arrigo, Antonio Lara, Jose Villanueva-Diaz, Mariano Masiokas, Jaime Argollo, Claudia Soliz, Carlos LeQuesne, David W. Stahle, Fidel Roig, Juan Carlos Aravena, Malcolm K. Hughes, Gregory Wiles, Gordon Jacoby, Peter Hartsough, Robert J.S. Wilson, Emma Watson, Edward R. Cook, Julian Cerano-Paredes, Matthew Therrell, Malcolm Cleaveland, Mariano S. Morales, Nicholas E. Graham, Jorge Moya, Jeanette Pacajes, Guillermina Massacchesi, Franco Biondi, Rocio Urrutia, and Guillermo Martinez Pastur

Part IV Applications of Dendroclimatology

8 Application of Streamflow Reconstruction to Water

Resources Management . . . 231

David M. Meko and Connie A. Woodhouse

9 Climatic Inferences from Dendroecological Reconstructions . . . . 263

Thomas W. Swetnam and Peter M. Brown

10 North American Tree Rings, Climatic Extremes,

and Social Disasters . . . 297

David W. Stahle and Jeffrey S. Dean

Part V Overview

11 Tree Rings and Climate: Sharpening the Focus . . . 331

Malcolm K. Hughes, Henry F. Diaz, and Thomas W. Swetnam

(9)

Contributors

Kevin J. Anchukaitis Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, The University of

Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA; Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964, USA, [email protected]

Juan Carlos Aravena Centro de Estudios Cuaternarios (CEQUA), Universidad de

Magallanes, Casilla 113-D, Punta Arenas, Chile, [email protected]

Jaime Argollo Laboratorio de Dendrocronología e Historia Ambiental, Facultad

de Ciencias Geológicas, Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, Calle 27, Cota Cota, La Paz, Bolivia, [email protected]

Franco Biondi Department of Geography, University of Nevada, Reno MS 156,

Reno, NV 89557, USA, [email protected]

Jose Boninsegna Departamento de Dendrocronología e Historia Ambiental,

Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales (IANIGLA), CONICET, CC 330, 5500, Mendoza, Argentina, [email protected]

Raymond S. Bradley Department of Geosciences, Climate System Research

Center, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003-9297, USA, [email protected]

Keith R. Briffa Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4

7TJ, UK, [email protected]

Peter M. Brown Rocky Mountain Tree-Ring Research, 2901 Moore Lane,

Fort Collins, CO 80526, USA, [email protected]

Julian Cerano-Paredes Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales y

Agropecuarias, INIFAP CENID-RASPA, Km 6.5 Margen Derecha del Canal Sacramento, Gómez Palacio, Durango, 35140, México,

[email protected]

Malcolm Cleaveland Tree-Ring Laboratory, Department of Geosciences,

University of Arkansas, Ozark Hall 113, Fayetteville, AR 72701, USA, [email protected]

(10)

x Contributors

Edward R. Cook Tree-Ring Laboratory, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory,

61 Route 9W, Palisades, NY 10964, USA, [email protected]

Rosanne D. D’Arrigo Tree-Ring Laboratory, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory,

Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964, USA, [email protected]

Jeffrey S. Dean Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona,

Tucson, AZ 85721, USA, [email protected]

Henry F. Diaz Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, Tucson,

AZ 85721, USA; NOAA Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, Earth System Research Laboratory, University of Calorado, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80309, USA, [email protected]

Michael N. Evans Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, The University of Arizona,

Tucson, AZ, USA; Department of Geology and Earth System Science

Interdisciplinary Center, The University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA, [email protected]

Mary Gagen Department of Geography, School of the Environment and Society,

Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea, SA2 8PP, UK, [email protected]

Nicholas E. Graham Hydrologic Research Center, 12780 High Bluff Drive,

250 La Jolla, CA 92130-3017, USA, [email protected]

Peter Hartsough Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, University

of California, Davis, CA 95618, USA, [email protected]

Malcolm K. Hughes Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona,

Gordon Jacoby Tree-Ring Laboratory, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory,

Columbia University, Palisades, NY 10964, USA, [email protected]

Antonio Lara Laboratorio de Dendrocronología, Instituto de Silvicultura,

Universidad Austral de Chile, Casilla 567, Valdivia, Chile, [email protected]

Carlos LeQuesne Laboratorio de Dendrocronología, Instituto de Silvicultura,

Neil J. Loader Department of Geography, School of the Environment and Society,

Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea SA2 8PP, UK, [email protected]

Brian H. Luckman Department of Geography, University of Western Ontario,

London, ON N6A 5C2, Canada, [email protected]

Guillermo Martinez Pastur Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas

(11)

Contributors xi

Mariano Masiokas Departamento de Dendrocronología e Historia Ambiental,

Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales (IANIGLA), CONICET, CC 330, 5500 Mendoza, Argentina,

[email protected]

Guillermina Massacchesi Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego, Administración de

Parques Nacionales, San Martín N◦1395 – Ushuaia – Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, [email protected]

Danny McCarroll Department of Geography, School of the Environment and

Society, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea, SA2 8PP, UK, [email protected]

David M. Meko Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona,

Thomas M. Melvin Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich,

NR4 7TJ, UK, [email protected]

Mariano S. Morales Departamento de Dendrocronología e Historia Ambiental,

Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales (IANIGLA), CONICET, CC 330, 5500 Mendoza, Argentina,

[email protected]

Jorge Moya Laboratorio de Dendrocronología, Instituto de Silvicultura,

Jeanette Pacajes Laboratorio de Dendrocronología e Historia Ambiental, Facultad

Neil Pederson Department of Biological Sciences, Eastern Kentucky University,

521 Lancaster Avenue, Richmond, KY 40475, USA, [email protected]

Iain Robertson Department of Geography, School of the Environment and

Society, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea SA2 8PP, UK, [email protected]

Fidel Roig Departamento de Dendrocronología e Historia Ambiental, Instituto

Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales (IANIGLA), CONICET, CC 330, 5500 Mendoza, Argentina, [email protected]

Claudia Soliz Laboratorio de Dendrocronología e Historia Ambiental, Facultad

David W. Stahle Department of Geosciences, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville,

(12)

xii Contributors

Thomas W. Swetnam Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, The University

of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA, [email protected]

Matthew Therrell Geography & Environmental Resources, Faner Hall-Mail Code

4514, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901, USA, [email protected]

Rocio Urrutia Laboratorio de Dendrocronología, Instituto de Silvicultura,

Eugene A. Vaganov Rectorate, Siberian Federal University, Krasnoyarsk, Russia,

[email protected]

Ricardo Villalba Departamento de Dendrocronología e Historia Ambiental,

Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales (IANIGLA), CONICET, CC 330, 5500 Mendoza, Argentina, [email protected]

Jose Villanueva-Diaz Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales y

Agropecuarias, INIFAP CENID-RASPA, Km 6.5 Margen Derecha del Canal Sacramento, Gómez Palacio, Durango, 35140, México,

[email protected]

Emma Watson 17 Dawson Crescent, Aurora, Ontario, L4G4T6, Canada,

[email protected]

Gregory Wiles The College of Wooster, Wooster, OH 44691, USA,

[email protected]

Robert J.S. Wilson Department of Geography, University of Saint Andrews,

St Andrews, Scotland, UK, [email protected]

Connie A. Woodhouse Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, The University of

Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA; Department of Geography and Regional Development, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA,

Developments in Paleoenvironmental Research