Publication details

Combined dendro-documentary evidence of Central European hydroclimatic springtime extremes over the last millennium

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Authors

BÜNTGEN Ulf BRÁZDIL Rudolf HEUSSNER Karl-Uwe HOFMANN Jutta KONTIC Raymond KYNCL Tomáš PFISTER Christian CHROMÁ Kateřina TEGEL Willy

Year of publication 2011
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Quaternary Science Reviews
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Science

Citation
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2011.10.010
Field Atmosphere sciences, meteorology
Keywords climate change;dendroarchaeology;dendroclimatology;documentary evidence;drought spells;forest growth;historical climatology;paleoclimatic reconstruction
Description Here we introduce and analyze 11,873 annually resolved and absolutely dated ring width measurement series from living and historical fir trees sampled across France, Switzerland, Germany, and the Czech Republic, which continuously span the AD 962-2007 period. Even though a dominant climatic driver of European fir growth was not found, ring width extremes were evidently triggered by anomalous variations in Central European April-June precipitation. Documentary evidence independently confirms many of the dendro signals over the past millennium, and further provides insight on causes and consequences of ambient weather conditions related to the reconstructed extremes. This joint dendro-documentary approach not only allows extreme climate conditions of the industrial era to be placed against the backdrop of natural variations, but also probably helps to constrain climate model simulations over exceptional long timescales.
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