Climate-Isotope Relationships in Trees : Effects of Non-Limiting Climatic Conditions from Seasonal to Century Scales

ISBN-13: 9783639149111 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 124 str.

Christina Reynolds Henne

Opis

Variations in past climate are of interest becausethey help explain and predict climate anomalies. Independent, quantitative information regarding pastclimate change is needed to place recently observedchanges and predictions for the future into a longerperspective. Trees represent the best-dated archiveof climate information for the Holocene in Europe.Climate reconstructions based on tree rings operateunder the assumption that the relationship betweenclimate and stable isotopic ratios in tree ringsremains stable over time. However, environmentalchanges themselves may alter the sensitivity of thisrelationship, causing time-dependent changes,complicated by the fact that trees are living systemsthat actively modify isotopic ratios duringincorporation of raw materials. Here we investigatedthe long-term relationship between tree isotopechronologies ( 13C and 18O), and climate, for treeslocated at two ecologically non-extreme andclimatologically non-limiting sites. In addition, 18O in tree compartments was studied to helpunderstand the influence of intra-annual variationsin temperature and relative humidity on a tree ringarchive.

O autorze

Presently employed at the Institute for Plant Sciences of the
University of Bern, Switzerland. Research interests: plant
physiological limitations under drought, global change, stable
isotopes.