Tree‐ring reconstruction of Crimean drought and lake chronology correction

Abstract

The first verifiable reconstruction of spring (April–July) precipitation is presented for Crimea, Ukraine. It is derived from Crimean pine (Pinus hamata) ring‐width data spanning A.D. 1620–2002. The reconstruction accounts for 37% of the variance in observed precipitation over 1896–1988. Most droughts recorded in Crimean historical documents in the 17th–19th centuries coincide with below‐average reconstructed precipitation in the concurrent or following year. An 11‐year filtered version of the reconstruction correlates with an annually‐laminated sediment‐thickness record from Saki Lake (4188 years in length), once this record is shifted backward by 15 years. The offset may be explained by anthropogenic changes at the lake in the late 19th century. The significant relationship between the lake sediments and reconstruction suggests that the lake record is also a moisture indicator. If so, the wettest period of the past 1500 years (∼AD1050–1250) broadly coincides with the “Medieval Warm Period” (MWP) in Crimea.

Dendroclimatology and historical climatology of Voronezh region, European Russia, since 1790s

“…These inconsistencies may point to the changes in prevailing atmospheric circulation patterns between centuries, as well as to a poorer reconstruction skill of P06 for particular seasons. Despite the highest correlations of P06 spring reconstruction in the 19th century in Crimea region with our chronology, we did not find any significant relationship with April‐June precipitation reconstruction from Crimea region based on tree rings (Solomina et al , , ).…”

Nonpollen palynomorphs: Indicators of salinity and environmental change in the Caspian–Black Sea–Mediterranean corridor

“…At present, Lake Saki is a salt lake (predominantly NaCl) separated from the Black Sea by a large sand bar up to 5 m high. The liman-lagoon occupies the estuary of a former drainage basin that was cut off by the construction of two dams in 1895 (Solomina et al, 2005), and its freshwater infl ow is now limited to precipitation and Black Sea water. This liman-lagoon has a salinity range of 40‰-80‰ in its outer "natural" part and 15‰0-200‰ in the inner dammed section.…”

“…The liman-lagoon contains black to gray clay annually varved sediments: eolian sediments accumulate mainly in summer, and total varve thickness is a proxy for intensity of river erosion, which corresponds to the precipitation regime. Time-series analysis of the varves and local pine tree rings shows that both record regional moisture regimes that are correlated with shifts of the North Atlantic Oscillation and its East Atlantic-Western Russia teleconnection (Solomina et al, 2005). It is of major interest to fi nd that both sectors of the alkaline Lake Saki sediments have high concentrations of well-preserved pollen, because, in some circumstances, these alkaline environments are problematic for pollen preservation (Bryant and Holloway, 1983).…”

Tree Rings and Climate: Sharpening the Focus

“…5. Reconciling the multiple proxies available from a tree-ring record internally in terms of mechanisms and known relationships, and then reconciling them with independent proxies from other natural archives; in the best case, this will involve tree-ring proxies and independent proxies providing estimates of processes linked by known, measurable mechanisms-for example, linking a tree-ring-based precipitation reconstruction through streamflow to the variation of lake levels recorded by geomorphic or sediment isotope records (for example, Andreev et al 1999;Luckman and Wilson 2005;Solomina et al 2005). By linking independent reconstructions of different components of a system, such as precipitation in the headwaters and the level of a receiving lake, it is possible to test the mutual consistency of the reconstructions quantitatively, and not merely to track covariation.…”