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Growth/climate response shift in a long subalpine spruce chronology

Büntgen, Ulf ; Frank, David ; Schmidhalter, Martin ; Neuwirth, Burkhard ; Seifert, Mathias ; Esper, Jan

In: Trees, 2006, vol. 20, no. 1, p. 99-110

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    Title
    • Growth/climate response shift in a long subalpine spruce chronology
    Author
    • Büntgen, Ulf. Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Zürcherstrasse 111, 8903, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
    • Frank, David. Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Zürcherstrasse 111, 8903, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
    • Schmidhalter, Martin. Dendrolabor Valais, Sennereigasse 1, 3900, Brig, Switzerland
    • Neuwirth, Burkhard. Department of Geography, University Bonn, Meckenheimer Allee 166, 53115, Bonn, Germany
    • Seifert, Mathias. Department of Archaeology Graubünden, Schloss Haldenstein, 7023, Haldenstein, Switzerland
    • Esper, Jan. Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Zürcherstrasse 111, 8903, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
    Document Type
    • Postprint
    OAI-PMH Identifier
    • oai:doc.rero.ch:321705
    Summary
    A new Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) tree-ring width chronology based on living and historic wood spanning the AD 1108-2003 period is developed. This composite record combines 208 high elevation samples from 3 Swiss subalpine valleys, i.e., Lötschental, Goms, and Engadine. To retain potential high- to low-frequency information in this dataset, individual spline detrending and the regional curve standardization are applied. For comparison, 22 high elevation and 6 low-elevation instrumental station records covering the greater Alpine area are used. Previous year August-September precipitation and current year May-July temperatures control spruce ring width back to ∼1930. Decreasing (increasing) moving correlations with monthly mean temperatures (precipitation) indicate instable growth/climate response during the 1760-2002 period. Crucial June-August temperatures before ∼1900 shift towards May-July temperature plus August precipitation sensitivity after ∼1900. Numerous of comparable subalpine spruce chronologies confirm increased late-summer drought stress, coincidently with the recent warming trend. Comparison with regional-, and large-scale millennial-long temperature reconstructions reveal significant similarities prior to ∼1900 (1300-1900 mean r=0.51); however, this study does not fully capture the commonly reported 20th century warming (1900-1980 mean r=−0.17). Due to instable growth/climate response of the new spruce chronology, further dendroclimatic reconstruction is not performed