reply: Constraints to growth of boreal forests

Vaganov and Hughes reply— The model we used, which is driven only by meteorological variables, reproduces the decadal timescale variations in relative tree-ring width indices that have been observed at three taiga sites in the Siberian subarctic separated by 85 degrees of longitude. In our study, absolute differences in mean growth rate between sites, related to slowly varying site conditions such as nutrient status, are removed by converting to dimensionless indices with a mean of unity. The results from the fertilization experiment on young plantation spruce trees described by Jarvis and Linder are thus not in disagreement with our major findings.