Yellow-cedar blue intensity tree-ring chronologies as records of climate in Juneau, Alaska, USA

Wiles, Gregory C.; Charlton, Joshua; Wilson, Rob; D’Arrigo, Rosanne; Buma, Brian; Krapek, John; Gaglioti, Benjamin V.; Wiesenberg, N.; Oelkers, Rose

doi:10.1139/cjfr-2018-0525

Cited by 22 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 59 publications

(95 reference statements)

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“…This phenomenon has been observed in Picea glacuca (Moench) Voss forests in the Yukon, where trees were limited by different factors during the warm and cool phases of the PDO [20]. Similarly, Wiles et al documented a loss in temperature sensitivity following the 1976/1977 shift in PDO in three stands of healthy yellow-cedar in southeast Alaska [23]. Determining if this is true for yellow-cedars on Haida Gwaii as well will help uncover the drivers of decline and determine whether they are the same as those on the mainland.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 69%

“…Climatic shifts related to the PDO have been shown to influence the growth and limiting factors of conifer species in northwestern North America [20,49]. Additionally, the 1976/1977 shift in PDO corresponded with a notable shift in temperature sensitivity to maximum growing season temperature of healthy stands of yellow-cedar in southeast Alaska [23]. The most dramatic warming has occurred after this switch in the PDO to a positive (warm) phase in 1976/1977.…”

Section: Climatic Drivers Of Yellow-cedar Declinementioning

confidence: 99%

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Tree-Rings Reveal Accelerated Yellow-Cedar Decline with Changes to Winter Climate after 1980

Comeau

Daniels

Knochenmus

et al. 2019

Forests

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Research Highlights: Yellow-cedar decline on the island archipelago of Haida Gwaii is driven by warm winter temperatures and low winter precipitation, which is caused by anthropogenic climate change and exacerbated by the positive phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). Background and Objectives: Declining yellow-cedars are limited by physiological drought during the growing season, caused by freezing damage to fine roots through a complex pathway identified by research in Alaska. Given this, we hypothesized: (1) yellow-cedars on Haida Gwaii were limited by the winter climate. (2) Trees of different health classes were responding differently to climatic variation. (3) Changing climate-growth relations would vary among phases of the PDO. Materials and Methods: We sampled 15 stands exhibiting crown symptoms and developed three regional chronologies from trees that were healthy, had crown or tree-ring symptoms of decline, and trees that had died. We tested for growth responses to inter-annual and multi-decadal variation in climate among trees of different health statuses using correlation functions and wavelet analyses. Results: The three chronologies had similar patterns from the early 1500s to 1900s and responded to climate in the same way, with multi-decadal variability, and common narrow marker years. Climate-growth responses among trees of different health statuses diverged after the 1976/1977 switch in the PDO. Warm growing season temperatures facilitated the growth of trees in the healthy chronology. By contrast, growth of trees that showed symptoms of decline or had died was negatively associated with low winter precipitation. After 1986, growth of trees in the declining chronology decreased sharply and mortality increased, which is concurrent with the warmest winter temperatures and consistent with the root-freezing hypothesis from Alaska. Conclusions: Yellow-cedar decline is driven by climate change, exacerbated by the PDO. Warming winter temperatures, accelerated by anthropogenic climate change, have led to dieback and death of yellow-cedars, even with the temperate ocean-moderated climate of Haida Gwaii.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 69%

Section: Climatic Drivers Of Yellow-cedar Declinementioning

confidence: 99%

Tree-Rings Reveal Accelerated Yellow-Cedar Decline with Changes to Winter Climate after 1980

Comeau

Daniels

Knochenmus

et al. 2019

Forests

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“…ex D.P. Little) was shown recently to contain a robust temperature signal from sites in Alaska (Wiles et al ., 2019). Although the two derive from different genera, they belong to the same Cupressaceae family and have similar wood characteristics.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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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“…Though the acceptance of BI in 75 dendrochronology was initially slow after publication of the original concept paper (McCarroll et al 2002), over the past decade many BI-based studies have been published. These studies have examined the use of BI as an ecological and climatological indicator in a variety of conifer species from several locations around the Northern Hemisphere (Campbell et al, 2007(Campbell et al, , 2011Helama et al, 2013;Rydval et al, 2014Rydval et al, , 2017Rydval et al, , 2018Björklund et al, 2014Björklund et al, , 2015Wilson et al, 2014Wilson et al, , 2017aWilson et al, , 2017bWilson et al, , 2019Babst et al, 2016;Dolgova, 2016;Arbellay et al, 2018;Buras et al, 2018;Fuentes et al, 2018;Kaczka 80 et al, 2018;Wiles et al, 2019;Harley et al 2020;Heeter et al 2020;Reid and Wilson 2020).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the dendroclimatological potential of blue intensity on multiple conifer species from Australasia

Wilson¹,

Allen²,

Baker³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Abstract. We evaluate a range of blue intensity (BI) tree-ring parameters in eight conifer species (12 sites) from Tasmania and New Zealand for their dendroclimatic potential, and as surrogate wood anatomical proxies. Using a dataset of ca. 10–15 trees per site, we measured earlywood maximum blue reflectance intensity (EWB), latewood minimum blue reflectance intensity (LWB) and the associated delta blue intensity (DB) parameter for dendrochronological analysis. No resin extraction was performed, impacting low frequency trends. Therefore, we focused only on the high frequency signal by detrending all tree-ring and climate data using a 20-year cubic smoothing spline. All BI parameters express low relative variance and weak signal strength compared to ring-width. Correlation analysis and principal component regression experiments identified a weak and variable climate response for most ring-width chronologies. However, for most sites, the EWB data, despite weak signal strength, expressed strong calibrations with summer temperatures. Significant correlations for LWB were also noted, but the sign of the relationship for most species is opposite to that reported for all conifer species in the Northern Hemisphere. DB performed well for the Tasmanian sites but explained minimal temperature variance in New Zealand. Using the full multi-species/parameter network, excellent summer temperature calibration was identified for both Tasmania and New Zealand ranging from 52 % to 78 % explained variance, with equally robust independent validation (Coefficient of Efficiency = 0.41 to 0.77). Comparison of the Tasmanian BI reconstruction with a wood anatomical reconstruction shows that these parameters record essentially the same strong high frequency summer temperature signal. Despite these excellent results, a substantial challenge exists with the capture of potential secular scale climate trends. Although DB, band-pass and other signal processing methods may help with this issue, substantially more experimentation is needed in conjunction with comparative analysis with ring density and quantitative WA measurements.

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Yellow-cedar blue intensity tree-ring chronologies as records of climate in Juneau, Alaska, USA

Cited by 22 publications

References 59 publications

Tree-Rings Reveal Accelerated Yellow-Cedar Decline with Changes to Winter Climate after 1980

Tree-Rings Reveal Accelerated Yellow-Cedar Decline with Changes to Winter Climate after 1980

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

Evaluating the dendroclimatological potential of blue intensity on multiple conifer species from Australasia

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