Dendroclimatology as the Part of Dendrochronology

Abstract

As a the brench of dendrochronology, dendroclimatology assesses the climate in the past and uses tree rings and weather data, mainly precipitation and temperatures, to assess future climate change. The rate of publications on dendroclimatology was slow during the first half of the 20th century, but it has grown exponentially since the 1960s. More than 3,000 of the 12,000 scientific publications now listed in the dendrochronology's online bibliography contain the word "climate". The purpose of the paper is to review the history of dendro-climatology and its basic provisions. The American astronomer A.I. Douglas at the beginning of the 20th century developed the methods and principles that we use today. The basic principles of dendrochronology are borrowed from general ecology: the uniformitarian principle, the principle of limiting factors, the principle of aggregate tree growth, the principle of ecological emplitude, the principle of crossdating, the principle of cite celection. The basic methods in dendrochronology are: selection of research sites, selection of cores, cross-dating, indexation of tree-ring chronologies. Statistical methods for quantifying tree to climate ratios are briefly discussed, as well as correlation analysis and response function. Examples of dendroclimatological studies are given. F.G. Kolyshchuk proposed an original technique for the study of radial pine growth in the Carpathian Mountains. He found that during the last 200 - 230 years different species of pine (Pinus mughus Scop., Sembra L.) growing in the high mountains and inter-forested marshes (P. Silvestris L., P. Mughus Scop.) In the Ukrainian Carpathians it’s revealed a similar growth rate in tree rings, which may be evidence of climatic conditioning of the dynamics of growth and the same response of these pine species to climate change. An example study of the response of pine radial growth to climate variations in the forest-steppe zone shows an increase in the sensitivity of stands due to climate warming. Conclusions. Dendroclimatology is an interdisciplinary science that helps to determine how similar or not climate is today to the past and continues to play an extremely important role in the study of the response of forest ecosystems to climate change.