Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey Published simultaneously in Canada
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 750-4470, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permission.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
For general information on our other products and services or for technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002.
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic formats. For more information about Wiley products, visit our web site at www.wiley.com.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
D’Arrigo, Rosanne, 1954 – Dendroclimatic studies : tree growth and climate change in northern forests / Rosanne D’Arrigo [and four others]. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-118-84872-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Old growth forests–Climatic factors–Northern Hemisphere. 2. Trees–Climatic factors–Northern Hemisphere. 3. Climate change mitigation. 4. Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. I. American Geophysical Union. II. Title. III. Title: Tree growth and climate change in northern forests. SD387.O43D37 2014 577.3–dc23 2013050491
Cover image: Courtesy of Rob Wilson, Author, St Andrews Tree Ring Lab, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, UK. Sample 6000-7000 yrs old representing maximum pine woodland extent into the Cairngorms during the mid-Holocene optimum. Cover design by Modern Alchemy LLC
Preface
As graduate students and research scientists over the past few decades, we have been fortunate enough to have the chance to travel to the far northern latitudes with each other and other colleagues from our laboratories and the wider tree-ring community. These forays to recover samples of old growth living and relict preserved wood for paleoclimatic studies involved searching for remote, undisturbed forests at treeline across northern North America and Eurasia. At these locations, the trees we sampled were at the limits of their survival and have served reliably as natural thermometers recording temperature conditions over the past several centuries or more. To visit such sites, for example in the far-flung Thelon River Sanctuary or the Coppermine River area of northern Canada, we would travel by charter plane from scheduled airports at such hubs as Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, already far from the beaten track. Our plane would then land on a river, dropping us with inflatable rafts and several weeks of camping gear, food, and full body gear for protection from the mosquitoes. We would then paddle downriver in our boats, stopping to sample any trees that caught our eye along the way. The possibility of a bear encounter was always in the back of our minds, and we saw our share. By day we searched for old trees, by night setting up camp and fishing for Arctic char and grayling for dinner.
We keep returning to some of these superb ancient sites to see how the trees have been faring over recent decades. Are the warmer temperatures inciting more growth? Or is warming causing drought stress and weakening the climate signal? These trees have much to tell us about the ever-changing response of the Earth’s climate system to greenhouse warming and related environmental change, and so the forays will continue.
Rosanne D’Arrigo, Tree-Ring Laboratory, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, New York, USA
Nicole Davi, Department of Environmental Science, William Paterson University, Wayne, New Jersey, USA
Gordon Jacoby, Tree-Ring Laboratory, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, New York, USA
Rob Wilson, School of Geography and Geosciences, University of Saint Andrews, St. Andrews, Scotland, UK
Greg Wiles, Department of Geology, The College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio, USA
Acknowledgments
We also acknowledge various contributions to the northern archive by Kevin Anchukaitis, Laia Andreu-Hayles, Valerie Barber, David Barclay, Pieter Beck, Brendan Buckley, Chris Buckley, Oyunsanaa Byambasuren, Parker Calkin, Jobie Carlisle, Paolo Cherubini, Ed Cook, Ashley Curtis, Ts. Davaajamts, Jan Esper, Jim Feaver, Ben Foster, David Frank, Rosemary Free, Inez Fung, Scott Goetz, Moses Gostev, Heather Griffin, Ileana Ivanciu, Glenn Juday, Susan Kaplan, Osamu Kobayashi, Paul and Anna Krusic, David Lawrence, Nicolai Lovelius, Brian Luckman, Erika Mashig, Baatarbileg Nachin, Biligbaatar Nazad, Neil Pederson, John Sakulich, Fritz Schweingruber, Paul Sheppard, Oleg I. Shumilov, Olga Solomina, Bayambagerel Suren, Roy Thetford, Linda Ulan, Ricardo Villalba, Martin Wilmking, and David Yamaguchi.
