An 1200-year multi-proxy dendrochronological temperature reconstruction for the area of Austrian Alps

. Temperature reconstruction was carried out on the basis of a centuries-long dendrochronological scales from Austrian Alps. Chronologies of growth-ring width, maximum density of latewood and stable isotope 15 content of carbon and oxygen were applied for the research. Subfossil wood and living trees originating from the area of Schwarzensee Lake were used for the construction of the chronologies. All measurements were performed with annual resolution. A very good match was found between the results obtained and the meteorological data, making it possible to precisely reconstruct the temperature of the growing season (May– September) over the years 800–2000 CE. The proportion of temperature variance explained by independent 20 variables accounted for 52 % in the period common for the growth-ring chronologies and meteorological data. The statistics calculated during calibration and verification tests indicated that chronologies have high reconstruction skills and that the accuracy of reconstruction is good. Obtained data show the existence of significant cooling in the periods 900–1100 CE, 1275–1325 CE, 1450–1600 CE and 1800–1890 CE and evident warming around the years 1150 CE, 1250 CE, 1325–1425 CE, 1625–1775 CE. The strongest increasing trend in 25 temperature has been observed

[1]  M. Grabner,et al.  A Twelve-Hundred-Year Stable Oxygen Isotope Chronology Constructed Using Subfossil Wood from Schwarzensee Lake, Austrian Alps , 2022, Radiocarbon.

[2]  S. Greetings.  Season , 2020, Definitions.

[3]  Scott St. George,et al.  Large-scale, millennial-length temperature reconstructions from tree-rings , 2018, Dendrochronologia.

[4]  M. Grabner,et al.  Multi-century long density chronology of living and sub-fossil trees from Lake Schwarzensee, Austria , 2015, Dendrochronologia.

[5]  M. Saurer,et al.  Climate sensitivity and parameter coherency in annually resolved δ13C and δ18O from Pinus uncinata tree-ring data in the Spanish Pyrenees , 2014 .

[6]  Michael Hofstätter,et al.  A new high resolution absolute temperature grid for the Greater Alpine Region back to 1780 , 2013 .

[7]  K. Briffa,et al.  Potential bias in ‘updating’ tree-ring chronologies using regional curve standardisation: Re-processing 1500 years of Torneträsk density and ring-width data , 2013 .

[8]  H. Cochard,et al.  Micro-evolutionary patterns of juvenile wood density in a pine species , 2012, Plant Ecology.

[9]  M. Grosjean,et al.  Multi-archive summer temperature reconstruction for the European Alps, AD 1053–1996 , 2012 .

[10]  M. Leuenberger,et al.  Pooled versus separate measurements of tree-ring stable isotopes. , 2011, The Science of the total environment.

[11]  D. Frank,et al.  Impact of climate and CO2 on a millennium-long tree-ring carbon isotope record. , 2009 .

[12]  P. Cochat,et al.  Et al , 2008, Archives de pediatrie : organe officiel de la Societe francaise de pediatrie.

[13]  Thomas M. Melvin,et al.  A “signal-free” approach to dendroclimatic standardisation , 2008 .

[14]  R. Wimmer,et al.  Tree‐ring growth variability in the Austrian Alps: the influence of site, altitude, tree species and climate , 2007 .

[15]  Eugene R. Wahl,et al.  Robustness of the Mann, Bradley, Hughes reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere surface temperatures: Examination of criticisms based on the nature and processing of proxy climate evidence , 2007 .

[16]  R. Wimmer,et al.  Bronze age dating of timber from the salt-mine at Hallstatt, Austria , 2007 .

[17]  Michele Brunetti,et al.  HISTALP—historical instrumental climatological surface time series of the Greater Alpine Region , 2007 .

[18]  Franco Biondi,et al.  DENDROCLIM2002: A C++ program for statistical calibration of climate signals in tree-ring chronologies , 2004, Comput. Geosci..

[19]  D. McCarroll,et al.  Stable isotopes in tree rings. , 2004 .

[20]  W. Schöner,et al.  Regional temperature variability in the European Alps: 1760–1998 from homogenized instrumental time series , 2001 .

[21]  D. McCarroll,et al.  Stable carbon isotope ratios of Pinus sylvestris from northern Finland and the potential for extracting a climate signal from long Fennoscandian chronologies , 2001 .

[22]  R. Wimmer,et al.  The influence of temperature on latewood lignin content in treeline Norway spruce compared with maximum density and ring width , 2000, Trees.

[23]  J. Frielingsdorf,et al.  CARBON ISOTOPE BEHAVIOUR IN WOOD AND CELLULOSE DURING ARTIFICIAL AGING , 1999 .

[24]  K. Briffa,et al.  A tree-ring densitometric transect from Alaska to Labrador , 1993 .

[25]  S. Los,et al.  Correction of tree ring stable carbon isotope chronologies for changes in the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere , Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 73, 1539-1547 , 2009 .

[26]  G. D. FarquharA,et al.  On the Relationship between Carbon Isotope Discrimination and the Intercellular Carbon Dioxide Concentration in Leaves , 2005 .

[27]  R. Wimmer,et al.  A COMPARISON OF TREE-RING FEATURES IN PICEA ABIES AS CORRELATED WITH CLIMATE , 2000 .

[28]  P. Jones,et al.  Adjusting variance for sample-size in tree-ring chronologies and other regional-mean timeseries , 1997 .

[29]  Keith R. Briffa,et al.  Basic chronology statistics and assessment , 1990 .