The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is the most important source of winter atmospheric variability in the northern hemisphere. NAO inversely reflects the precipitation regime, which plays a fundamental role in Mediterranean regions, e.g., by recharging the water table. As no attempt has been made thus far to analyze the relationship between NAO variability and tree radial growth in coastal Mediterranean conifers, this paper identifies the monthly, winter, annual, and decadal influence of NAO on tree-ring chronologies of six planted Pinus pinea L. populations distributed along the Tyrrhenian coasts of central Italy. Through multidimensional analyses, we identified tree-ring chronology associations in two main groups. The influence of NAO on the regional chronologies was identified with correlation functions for the comparison period between 1949 and 2003 at both annual and decadal timescales. Results indicate that winter NAO influence on radial tree growth at annual and decadal timescales may depend on geographical location, site characteristics, and the age structure of tree-ring chronologies. These results contribute to a better understanding of the P. pinea coastal forest ecology and provide evidence of large-scale climatic forcings that influence forest Mediterranean ecosystems.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.