Hierarchical regression models for dendroclimatic standardization and climate reconstruction

Tree-ring based paleoclimate reconstructions entail several sequential estimation or processing steps. Consequently, it can be difficult to isolate climatic from non-climatic variability in the raw ring width measurements, estimate the uncertainty associated with a reconstruction, and directly infer how specific techniques used to sequentially fit growth curves or to reconstruct climate influence the final estimates. This paper explores the use of hierarchical regression models to address these problems. The proposed models simultaneously model the entire reconstruction process in a way that is consistent with the existing step-by-step estimation framework, but allow for uncertainty estimation and propagation across steps, which can help determine how best to improve a candidate model. The utility of hierarchical models is tested for an example, the reconstruction of summertime temperatures in northern Sweden in a cross-validated framework relative to 1) a sequential process of growth curve fitting followed by chronology development, 3) an iterative, “signal-free” approach, and 2) a signal-free regional curve standardization (RCS-SF). Further, an exploration of different structures within the unifying hierarchical framework is provided to illustrate how one could easily test a variety of choices of model design. We focus on a subset of choices relevant to recent dendroclimatic studies using hierarchical methods and related to 1) data transformation, 2) the benefits of biological detrending and climate reconstruction in a single step 3) partial pooling of the age model across trees, 4) the homogeneity of variance across tree-ring residuals, 5) the structural form of the age model, and 6) the inclusion of autoregressive processes for the tree-ring residuals. The work described here represents part of a series of ongoing explorations of potential advances over current dendroclimatic reconstruction approaches and commonly implemented ways in which they have and are specifically implemented. The results show that hierarchical modeling appears to offer improved climate reconstructions over the standardization techniques explored in this exercise, substantially so for the non-RCS sequential and iterative methods

A NEW HIGH-RESOLUTION BI-CENTENNIAL (1800–2003) PRECIPITATION DATASET FOR THE GREATER ALPINE REGION

A new precipitation dataset for the Greater Alpine Region (GAR; 4°E–19°E, 43°N–49°N) has been developed. It provides monthly precipitation totals for the 1800–2003 period on a 10-min resolution grid. The new ‘HISTALP 10-min-grid’ dataset is based on long-term homogenized precipitation series from meteorological stations across the study domain and a high-resolution precipitation climatology dataset for the 1971–1990 period. The effective coverage of the dataset depends on the observations available in the station network which progressively decline back to the early 19th Century (from 192 to 5 stations). To aid the use of these data in other studies, an accompanying dataset has also been developed, which provides a measure of quality of each monthly precipitation estimate over the grid: the explained variance, relative to the 1931–2000 (maximum data availability) period. The computed quality score illustrates the comparatively poorer accuracy of the dataset for regions and months with less coherent precipitation fields (i.e., over the Alps and in summer) and when the number of stations is reduced, particularly before 1840. The derived gridded field has been compared with other independently-developed datasets and is found to provide a similar description of the precipitation in the GAR for places and periods of common coverage

Dark Ages Cold Period: A literature review and directions for future research

Several late Quaternary studies have recorded cold and disturbed climates centred during the mid-first millennium AD and discussed these conditions under the term ‘Dark Ages Cold Period’ (DACP). A review of 114 palaeoclimate papers indicated that cold climates were common in the Northern Hemisphere between AD 400 and 765. There are also suggestions that some regions may have been relatively wet during the DACP, while those around the Mediterranean and the China/Tibetan Plateau indicate coinciding droughts. A set of environmental responses, however, indicate a delayed DACP interval (AD 509–865) postdating the actual climate signal. Previously, the DACP has been linked with the North Atlantic ice-rafting event at about 1400 years ago, while some evidence suggests an involvement of the North Atlantic Oscillation and/or El Niño–Southern Oscillation. More recently, another proposed phase of widespread cooling, the ‘Late Antique Little Ice Age’ (LALIA), overlaps with the DACP and has been tentatively linked with volcanic aerosol and solar irradiance variations reinforcing the climatic downturn since AD 536. Importantly, a higher number of proxy records extending over the first millennium AD is required for more rigorous assessments of climate variability and the forcing during these centuries and to disentangle the DACP and LALIA fingerprints in the proxy data, particularly to determine whether the DACP and the LALIA are distinct features. Also a richer network of both climate and environmental proxies is needed to evaluate the human–environment interactions, during the historical Migration Period, and thus through the DACP

Last millennium northern hemisphere summer temperatures from tree rings: Part I: The long term context

Large-scale millennial length Northern Hemisphere (NH) temperature reconstructions have been progressively improved over the last 20 years as new datasets have been developed. This paper, and its companion (Part II, Anchukaitis et al. in prep), details the latest tree-ring (TR) based NH land air temperature reconstruction from a temporal and spatial perspective. This work is the first product of a consortium called N-TREND (Northern Hemisphere Tree-Ring Network Development) which brings together dendroclimatologists to identify a collective strategy for improving large-scale summer temperature reconstructions. The new reconstruction, N-TREND2015, utilises 54 records, a significant expansion compared with previous TR studies, and yields an improved reconstruction with stronger statistical calibration metrics. N-TREND2015 is relatively insensitive to the compositing method and spatial weighting used and validation metrics indicate that the new record portrays reasonable coherence with large scale summer temperatures and is robust at all time-scales from 918 to 2004 where at least 3 TR records exist from each major continental mass. N-TREND2015 indicates a longer and warmer medieval period (∼900–1170) than portrayed by previous TR NH reconstructions and by the CMIP5 model ensemble, but with better overall agreement between records for the last 600 years. Future dendroclimatic projects should focus on developing new long records from data-sparse regions such as North America and eastern Eurasia as well as ensuring the measurement of parameters related to latewood density to complement ring-width records which can improve local based calibration substantially

Radial Growth of Qilian Juniper on the Northeast Tibetan Plateau and Potential Climate Associations

There is controversy regarding the limiting climatic factor for tree radial growth at the alpine treeline on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau. In this study, we collected 594 increment cores from 331 trees, grouped within four altitude belts spanning the range 3550 to 4020 m.a.s.l. on a single hillside. We have developed four equivalent ring-width chronologies and shown that there are no significant differences in their growth-climate responses during 1956 to 2011 or in their longer-term growth patterns during the period AD 1110–2011. The main climate influence on radial growth is shown to be precipitation variability. Missing ring analysis shows that tree radial growth at the uppermost treeline location is more sensitive to climate variation than that at other elevations, and poor tree radial growth is particularly linked to the occurrence of serious drought events. Hence water limitation, rather than temperature stress, plays the pivotal role in controlling the radial growth of Sabina przewalskii Kom. at the treeline in this region. This finding contradicts any generalisation that tree-ring chronologies from high-elevation treeline environments are mostly indicators of temperature changes

Old World megadroughts and pluvials during the Common Era

Climate model projections suggest widespread drying in the Mediterranean Basin and wetting in Fennoscandia in the coming decades largely as a consequence of greenhouse gas forcing of climate. To place these and other “Old World” climate projections into historical perspective based on more complete estimates of natural hydroclimatic variability, we have developed the “Old World Drought Atlas” (OWDA), a set of year-to-year maps of tree-ring reconstructed summer wetness and dryness over Europe and the Mediterranean Basin during the Common Era. The OWDA matches historical accounts of severe drought and wetness with a spatial completeness not previously available. In addition, megadroughts reconstructed over north-central Europe in the 11th and mid-15th centuries reinforce other evidence from North America and Asia that droughts were more severe, extensive, and prolonged over Northern Hemisphere land areas before the 20th century, with an inadequate understanding of their causes. The OWDA provides new data to determine the causes of Old World drought and wetness and attribute past climate variability to forced and/or internal variability

Internal and external forcing of multidecadal Atlantic climate variability over the past 1,200 years

The North Atlantic experiences climate variability on multidecadal scales, which is sometimes referred to as Atlantic multidecadal variability. However, the relative contributions of external forcing such as changes in solar irradiance or volcanic activity and internal dynamics to these variations are unclear. Here we provide evidence for persistent summer Atlantic multidecadal variability from AD 800 to 2010 using a network of annually resolved terrestrial proxy records from the circum-North Atlantic region. We find that large volcanic eruptions and solar irradiance minima induce cool phases of Atlantic multidecadal variability and collectively explain about 30% of the variance in the reconstruction on timescales greater than 30 years. We are then able to isolate the internally generated component of Atlantic multidecadal variability, which we define as the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation. We find that the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation is the largest contributor to Atlantic multidecadal variability over the past 1,200 years. We also identify coherence between the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation and Northern Hemisphere temperature variations, leading us to conclude that the apparent link between Atlantic multidecadal variability and regional to hemispheric climate does not arise solely from a common response to external drivers, and may instead reflect dynamic processes