Blue intensity as a temperature proxy in the eastern United States: A pilot study from a southern disjunct population of Picea rubens (Sarg.)

Heeter, Karen J.; Harley, Grant L.; Gevel, Saskia L. van de; White, Philip

doi:10.1016/j.dendro.2019.04.010

Cited by 17 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…For this study, we added more samples to the Roan Mountain collection detailed in Heeter et al . (2019), as well as sampled increment cores from additional sites—4 red spruce, 1 Carolina hemlock, and 1 eastern hemlock—across the southern Appalachian Mountain region of North Carolina, USA during May 2019. We also acquired tree‐ring samples collected previously across the Southeast, Midwest, and Northeast US regions, including 1 Fraser fir from North Carolina, 1 red spruce from Vermont, and total of 8 eastern hemlock from Indiana (2), Ohio (1), Maine (4), and Connecticut (1) (Table 1; Figure 1).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…After cores were absolutely dated and measured, we obtained measurements of ring width and BI (e.g., LWB or DBI) for each core using CooRecorder. Using the SignalFree (SF) program (Melvin and Briffa, 2008), both ring‐width and BI measurements were standardized with an age‐dependent spline (ADSsf) (sensu Wilson et al ., 2019; Heeter et al ., 2019) and combined into site‐specific chronologies using a bi‐weight average. We assessed the homogeneity of the inter‐site chronology signal within each region using principal component analysis (PCA) over the common period, which differed depending on the region.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Heeter et al . (2019) demonstrate the first successful application of BI in the East for the purposes of (a) determining the efficacy of using BI as a temperature proxy on a low‐latitude population of red spruce ( Picea rubens Sarg.) and (b) assessing the influence of disturbance (e.g., insect outbreak, logging) on BI results.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(2012) showed a negative response in ring‐width to disturbance events, Heeter et al . (2019) demonstrated that BI methods can be used skilfully on a high‐elevation (ca. 2000 m above sea level; masl), lower‐latitude (ca.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this paper, we build on the findings of Heeter et al . (2019) and discuss the potential for building a broad‐scale BI network that could provide multi‐centennial temperature reconstructions from a wide variety of species distributed across the East. Our overall objective is to report on the most viable species for BI analysis across different regions of the East (e.g., Southeast US, Midwest US, Northeast US/Canadian Maritimes) by identifying temporal (e.g., since ca.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Towards broad‐scale temperature reconstructions for Eastern North America using blue light intensity from tree rings

Harley

Heeter

Maxwell

et al. 2020

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Summer temperatures across eastern North America (hereafter East) will soon reach a level consistently above any observation experienced during the instrumental period. Increasing temperatures will have negative impacts on natural (e.g., water, plant and animal communities) and human (e.g., health, infrastructure, economies) systems upon which the large and growing centres of human population across the region depend. Within the network of Northern Hemisphere tree-ring temperature proxy records, one of the most obvious geographic holes is the East, where few temperature-sensitive proxies exist. Here we present the first steps towards building a network of temperature-sensitive proxy records across the East using blue light intensity (BI) methods applied to the tree rings of multiple temperature sensitive tree species situated from North Carolina to Maine, USA. Our overall objective is to report on the most viable species for BI analysis across different regions of the East (e.g., Southeast US, Midwest US, Northeast US/Canadian Maritimes) by exploring temporal (e.g., since ca. 1900) and spatial relationships between instrumental temperatures and BI metrics. We found BI to be a strong predictor of March-October mean air temperature (R 2 = 0.61) across the Northeast US/eastern Canada, and Sep-Oct maximum air temperature (R 2 = 0.42) across the Southeast US. Of all species tested, Tsuga canadensis and Picea rubens contained the strongest BI temperature signal. Adding more BI sites from these and potentially other species, as well as inclusion of other temperature proxies (e.g., ring widths) will allow for the development of a skilful broad-scale and long-term temperature field reconstruction across the East.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Towards broad‐scale temperature reconstructions for Eastern North America using blue light intensity from tree rings

Harley

Heeter

Maxwell

et al. 2020

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Improved spring temperature reconstruction using earlywood blue intensity in southeastern China

Cao

Kao

et al. 2022

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Because instrumental observations are too short to fully represent long-term natural variability, high-resolution temperature proxy records are essential to understanding past climate and assessing current climate variability in the context of long-term patterns. In the subtropics, progress in this field has been hampered by a relative lack of long and truly temperature-sensitive proxy records. In this study, we provide an assessment of the dendroclimatic potential of blue intensity (BI) and ring-width (RW) measurements from two hot/humid Pinus massoniana sites in China. Our results show that RW exhibits a significant (p < .05) response to precipitation over a hydrological year (previous November to October) and to temperature over the winterspring season (January to March). We find the earlywood blue intensity parameter to be the most robust parameter for reconstruction purposes; over the 1916-2015 period, it explains 36% of regional-scale spring season (March-May) temperature variance. Strong agreements between the current reconstruction and observed temperature over a large area of southeastern China implied that our reconstruction exhibited high reliability and large spatial representation. As expected, our reconstructed temperature data are directly correlated with El Niño-Southern Oscillation. These results suggest that there is great potential to use BI to advance our understanding of temperature variability in regions hot and humid climate regimes. However, more studies are needed to understand (1) which subtropical tree species will be appropriate for use and (2) how to overcome biases from differential staining between sapwood and heartwood.

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Blue intensity of Swiss stone pine as a high-frequency temperature proxy in the Alps

et al. 2023

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Tree rings are widely used for climatic reconstructions and for improving our understanding of ongoing climate change in high-altitude sensitive areas. X-ray maximum latewood density is a very powerful parameter to reconstruct past climatic variations, especially if compared to tree-ring width, but this method is neither inexpensive nor timesaving. However, blue intensity (BI) has resulted in an excellent maximum wood density surrogate that measures the intensity of reflected light from latewood in the blue spectra. This methodology is still considered a prototype parameter, and more data are needed for validation of the method. We present the first BI values coming from Swiss stone pine (Pinus cembra L.) collected on the southern margin of the Alps. Analyses were performed by testing different solvents and polishing techniques, as well as different CooRecorder pixel percentage settings. The results demonstrate that solvents and software parameters have little influence on the final chronologies. Dendroclimatic analyses demonstrate that Swiss stone pine BI can be a useful tool to extract at least the high-frequency variations in July–August temperatures with a correlation coefficient of up to 0.6 (over the 1800–2017 time period). The immunity of Swiss stone pine to insect defoliator outbreaks further enhances the reliability of the BI values of this species in reconstructing past high-frequency temperature variations in high-altitude sensitive areas.

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Blue intensity as a temperature proxy in the eastern United States: A pilot study from a southern disjunct population of Picea rubens (Sarg.)

Cited by 17 publications

References 23 publications

Towards broad‐scale temperature reconstructions for Eastern North America using blue light intensity from tree rings

Towards broad‐scale temperature reconstructions for Eastern North America using blue light intensity from tree rings

Improved spring temperature reconstruction using earlywood blue intensity in southeastern China

Blue intensity of Swiss stone pine as a high-frequency temperature proxy in the Alps

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