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Influence of micro-site conditions on tree-ring climate signals and trends in central and northern Sweden

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Abstract

Tree-ring chronologies are important indicators of pre-instrumental, natural climate variability. Some of the longest chronologies are from northern Fennoscandia, where ring width measurement series from living trees are combined with series from sub-fossil trees, preserved in shallow lakes, to form millennial-length records. We here assess the recent ends of such timeseries by comparing climate signals and growth characteristics in central and northern Sweden, of (1) trees growing at lakeshore micro-sites (representing the source of sub-fossil material of supra-long chronologies), with (2) trees collected in dryer micro-sites several meters “inland”. Calibration trials reveal a predominating June–September temperature signal in N-Sweden and a weaker but significant May–September precipitation signal in C-Sweden. At the micro-site level, the temperature signal in N-Sweden is stronger in the lakeshore trees compared to the inland trees, whereas the precipitation signal in C-Sweden remains unchanged among the lakeshore and inland trees. Tree-rings at cambial ages >40 years are also substantially wider in the lakeshore micro-site in C-Sweden, and juvenile rings are more variable (and wider) in the dryer micro-site in N-Sweden (compared to the adjacent micro-sites). By combining the data of the various micro-sites with relict samples spanning the past 1,000 years, we demonstrate that growth rate differences at the micro-site scale can affect the low frequency trends of millennial-length chronologies. For the supra-long chronologies from northern Fennoscandia, that are derived from sub-fossil lake material, it is recommended to combine these data with measurement series from only lakeshore trees.

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Acknowledgments

Supported by the Mainz Geocycles Research Centre. We thank Dana Riechelmann and Florian Benninghoff for help with fieldwork and Lea Schneider for discussion.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, Johannes Gutenberg University, Becherweg 21, 55099, Mainz, Germany

    Elisabeth Düthorn & Jan Esper

  2. Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, 10691, Stockholm, Sweden

    Steffen Holzkämper

  3. Rovaniemi Research Unit, Finnish Forest Research Institute, 96301, Rovaniemi, Finland

    Mauri Timonen

Authors
  1. Elisabeth Düthorn
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  2. Steffen Holzkämper
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  3. Mauri Timonen
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  4. Jan Esper
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Correspondence to Elisabeth Düthorn.

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Communicated by J. Lin.

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Düthorn, E., Holzkämper, S., Timonen, M. et al. Influence of micro-site conditions on tree-ring climate signals and trends in central and northern Sweden. Trees 27, 1395–1404 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-013-0887-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-013-0887-8

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