Central England temperature since AD 1850: the potential of stable carbon isotopes in British oak trees to reconstruct past summer temperatures

Abstract

In regions with seasonal temperate climatic regimes, tree growth is rarely controlled by any single environmental factor. As a consequence, the development of robust palaeoclimate reconstructions has proved challenging. Tree-ring stable carbon isotope ratios (d 13 C), however, are controlled primarily by photosynthetic rate, not by net growth. Therefore, at sites where climatic controls on tree-ring growth are not strongly expressed, a robust (isotopic) palaeoclimate signal may still potentially be preserved. This hypothesis was tested using a 160-year record of d 13 C measured from the pooled latewood cellulose of six Quercus petraea L. (sessile oak) trees from Allt Lan-las in West Wales, UK. Raw d 13 C values were corrected for changes in the isotopic ratio of atmospheric carbon dioxide and for changes in the behaviour of trees due to the increasing availability of atmospheric CO 2 since AD 1850. Strong correlations with local summer temperature and sunshine are reported, and also with the Central England Temperature record over the full length of the isotopic chronology (AD 1850-2010) (r ¼ 0.69, P < 0.001). We conclude that treering stable isotopes can be used to extract strong palaeoclimate signals even from oak trees growing in a temperate maritime climate. This demonstrates the potential for extracting robust palaeoclimatic information from the very long and well-replicated oak chronologies which have been developed in western and central Europe primarily for dating rather than palaeoclimatic research purposes.

A 560 yr summer temperature reconstruction for the Western Mediterranean basin based on stable carbon isotopes from &lt;i&gt;Pinus nigra&lt;/i&gt; ssp. &lt;i&gt;laricio&lt;/i&gt; (Corsica/France)

“…Nevertheless, the pin-correction has been applied to pooled chronologies (e.g. Young et al, 2012). Szymczak et al (2012) developed carbon isotope chronologies of 5 individual trees from one site as well as a pooled chronology consisting of the same 5 trees for a common time period (1961.…”

French summer droughts since 1326 CE: a reconstruction based on tree ring cellulose &lt;i&gt;δ&lt;/i&gt;&lt;sup&gt;18&lt;/sup&gt;O

“…Loader et al, 2008;Saurer et al, 2008;Young et al, 2012). They can help extend climate reconstructions into regions which are not yet well covered , and also provide information about precipitation amount (Rinne et al, 2013;Young et al, 2015).…”

Climatic sensitivity of δ13C in tree rings of Quercus robur L., Populus tremula L. and Pinus sylvestris L. in Vilnius region (eastern Lithuania)

“…Measurements of the stable carbon, oxygen and hydrogen isotope ratio exhibit a statistically significant relationship with environmental variables such as temperature, precipitation, drought, sunshine, cloud cover (Gori et al, 2013;Hilasvuori & Berninger, 2010;Loader et al, 2008;McCarroll et al, 2003;Treydte et al, 2007;Young et al, 2012). The mechanisms responsible for the isotope fractionation in tree rings are fairly well-known (Farquhar et al, 1982;Gessler et al, 2014;McCarroll & Loader, 2004;Waterhouse et al, 2004).…”

“…Although strong correlations between isotopic and instrumental data from temperate areas such as Britain (Loader et al, 2003;Loader et al, 2008;Robertson et al, 1997b), Northern France (Etien et al, 2009), Southern Finland (Hilasvuori & Berninger, 2010 and Swiss Central Plateau (Saurer et al, 2008) were evaluated, and only one publication concerning the climate reconstruction of the site neither strongly limited by temperature nor precipitation (temperature in Central England) (Young et al, 2012) was found.…”

“…1. ), during the same period as in the remote area in West Wales, UK (Young et al, 2012). Robertson et al (1997b) showed high correlation values of δ 13 C measurements in Q. robur tree rings from dry and moist sites of East England with JulyAugust temperature (r = 0.72, and r = 0.57, p < 0.01, respectively);in this case high-frequency filtering was used.…”