An 810‐year history of cold season temperature variability for northern Poland

Abstract

Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) is a widely used tree species in European dendroclimatology studies due to its common distribution across much of the continent. Almost all studies find radial growth strongly related to summer temperature, a result reflecting site selection at high elevation/latitude environments where trees grow at their ecophysiological limits. Due to the amount of attention spent on these sites there is a geographical and seasonal bias in temperature reconstructions based upon tree‐ring proxies in Europe. To overcome the limited availability of tree‐ring data in temperate lowlands, we present a northern Poland ring‐width chronology developed from living and historic Scots pine material with a strong common growth signal going back to AD 1200. Investigations into climate‐growth relationships found year‐to‐year ring‐width variability to be more strongly correlated to cold season temperature (November to April) prior to the growing season than summer temperatures during tree‐ring formation. Based on this relationship it was possible to reconstruct cold season temperature conditions for the last 810 years. Spatial field correlations with gridded instrumental records indicated that the reconstruction provides relevant cold season temperature information across the land regions bordering the North Atlantic Ocean and Baltic Sea, lowlands and uplands of western and central Europe, and the eastern and central interior of Russia. Despite an unsuccessful attempt to find a stationary relationship with the North Atlantic Oscillation, comparisons with several cold season temperature reconstructions confirmed the long‐term connection between our reconstructed temperature series for northern Poland and the wider area.

Interdisciplinary Geo‐ecological Research across Time Scales in the Northeast German Lowland Observatory (TERENO‐NE)

“…Correlations during the winter months are nonsignificant but slightly negative. This is in contrast to the results of Balanzategui et al (2017), who suggested a positive response to high cold‐season temperatures for P. sylvestris growing under similar site conditions in northern Poland.…”

Tree growth influenced by warming winter climate and summer moisture availability in northern temperate forests

“…Previous dendrochronological studies at sites in northern Europe and at high elevation sites, document a positive relationship between annual ring width and summer temperature (Briffa, Jones, Pilcher, & Hughes, ; Düthorn, Holzkämper, Timonen, & Esper, ; Grudd et al, ), indicating that warmer summer temperatures promote Scots pine tree growth. Contrarily, in the European Lowlands of Germany and Poland late winter/early spring temperature has been frequently reported to promote growth of Scots pine (Balanzategui et al, ; Hordo, Metslaid, & Kiviste, ; Koprowski, Przybylak, Zielski, & Pospieszyńska, ; Läänelaid & Eckstein, ; Pärn, ; Vitas, ), indicating warm late winter/early spring temperature conditions are important for Scots pine growth in these regions. The spatial transitions separating the disparate climate–growth responses of Scots pine growth in central and northern Europe, and the ecophysiological causal mechanisms, are not well understood or documented.…”

“…From these common species, pedunculate oak, Scots pine and European beech are the primary species used in dendrochronological studies based in the south Baltic Sea region (e.g. Balanzategui et al, 2017;Drobyshev, Niklasson, Eggertsson, Linderson, & Sonesson, 2008;Scharnweber et al, 2011;Sohar, Läänelaid, Eckstein, Helama, & Jaagus, 2014;van der Maaten-Theunissen et al, 2016) and are the target species for this study.…”

“…Previous dendrochronological studies at sites in northern Europe and at high elevation sites, document a positive relationship between annual ring width and summer temperature (Briffa, Jones, Pilcher, & Hughes, 1988;Düthorn, Holzkämper, Timonen, & Esper, 2013;Grudd et al, 2002), indicating that warmer summer temperatures promote Scots pine tree growth. Contrarily, in the European Lowlands of Germany and Poland late winter/ early spring temperature has been frequently reported to promote growth of Scots pine (Balanzategui et al, 2017;Hordo, Metslaid, & Kiviste, 2009;Koprowski, Przybylak, Zielski, & Pospieszyńska, 2012;Läänelaid & Eckstein, 2003;Pärn, 2009;Vitas, 2006 Perhaps warming temperatures in the early spring extend the growing season in the south Baltic Sea region (Vitas, 2011), promoting productivity and growth. Scots pine, as an evergreen species, can capitalize on the early onset of these winter climate conditions conducive to growth (Antonova & Stasova, 1993;Gruber, Strobl, Veit, & Oberhuber, 2010).…”

Tree-ring widths and the stable isotope composition of pine tree-rings as climate indicators in the most industrialised part of Poland during CO₂ elevation

“…The temperature in winter was the main limiting factor for the activity of pines. In late winter and early spring, a relatively high air temperature initiated physiological and biochemical processes faster, and caused vascular cambium activation earlier (Gricar et al, 2006;Rossi et al, 2008;Balanzategui et al, 2017). In cold regions, the tree-ring growth of trees was mainly limited by the summer temperature (Lindholm et al, 2000;Helama et al, 2002Helama et al, , 2005Macias et al, 2004;Wilczyński and Szymański, 2015).…”