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Variations in vapor pressure and standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index since AD 1861 over the western Himalaya in India: inference from tree ring-width records

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Abstract

A regional tree ring-width index chronology prepared from various tree core samples of the western Himalaya has been analyzed in relation to climate fluctuations. The correlation analysis of tree ring chronology shows significant positive correlations with regional rainfall and standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) and negative correlations with temperature and vapor pressure (VP) during the spring season. The correlation coefficients (CCs) of tree ring-width index chronology with rainfall, temperature, SPEI, and VP during 1901–1990 are 0.50, −0.49, 0.65, and −0.51, respectively. All CCs are significant at 0.1% level. The highly significant CCs between tree ring-width index chronology and SPEI indicate that tree growth over the western Himalaya is more sensitive to soil moisture availability than rainfall, whereas the rising VP is found to have a significant moisture stress condition to tree growth by accelerating the evapotranspiration, which is not conducive for the development of tree growth in the region. So, based on the strong association between tree ring-width index chronology and SPEI; the reconstructions of SPEI and VP are developed back to AD 1861, that show the long period of dryness during 1936–1963.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Prof. Ravi S. Nanjundiah, Director, IITM, Pune and Dr. R. Krishnan, Executive Director, CCCR, IITM, Pune for their kind support and providing of infrastructure facilities. The authors are thankful to NOAA for providing tree ring data and CRU for climatic data. The authors also thank reviewer for positive comments for improvement of our manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, -411008, Pune, India

    Somaru Ram, H. N. Singh, Ramesh Kumar Yadav, Hamza Varikoden & S. S. Nandargi

  2. Department of Geophysics, Banaras Hindu University, -221005, Varanasi, India

    Manoj K. Srivastava

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  1. Somaru Ram
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  2. H. N. Singh
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  3. Ramesh Kumar Yadav
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  6. Manoj K. Srivastava
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Correspondence to Somaru Ram.

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Ram, S., Singh, H.N., Yadav, R.K. et al. Variations in vapor pressure and standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index since AD 1861 over the western Himalaya in India: inference from tree ring-width records. Theor Appl Climatol 140, 157–166 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-019-03075-5

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