Dendroclimatic Reconstruction of April–May Temperature Fluctuations in the Western Himalaya of India Since A.D. 1698

Abstract

Ring-width chronologies of Himalayan cedar (Cedrus deodara (D. Don.) G. Don.), Himalayan pine (Pinus wallichiana A. B. Jackson), and Himalayan spruce (Picea smithiana (Wall.) Boiss.) from the western Himalayan region, India, have been used to reconstruct mean April–May temperature back to A. D. 1698. The reconstruction correlates significantly with the average April–May instrumental temperature record (r= +0.62, 1876–1988) and is characterized by annual to multiyear fluctuations. The most striking feature of the present reconstruction is the absence of any warming trend in the 20th century. Relationships between the mean April–May temperature for the western Himalayan region, Indian summer monsoon rainfall, and Southern Oscillation Index indicate that the tree-ring chronologies, as surrogate temperature records, will provide valuable data for climate change studies with regional and global perspectives.

An attempt to dendroclimatic reconstruction of winter temperature based on multispecies tree-ring widths and extreme years chronologies (example of Upper Silesia, Southern Poland)

“…Although the statistics for each model did not differ much from each other, the best results were obtained using combination of species. This result confirmed the idea and validity of using multispecies models previously proposed by Yadav et al (1997) or Garcıá-Suárez et al (2009).…”

Summer mean temperature variation from 1710–2005 inferred from tree-ring data of the Baimang Snow Mountains, northwestern Yunnan, China

“…Correlation analysis indicated that spring (April) temperature also has biological relevance for interannual variations in tree growth at the high elevation sites, and similar results have been reported for the Western Himalayas of India and Nepal (Yadav et al 1997, Cook et al 2003. The positive influence of spring temperature on tree growth is evident, as high spring temperatures lead to the breaking of dormancy and the resumption of physiological activity in the tree, thus increasing the duration of the current growing season (Lebourgeois et al 2005).…”

“…These negative climatic effects may limit cambial activity by affecting the photosynthetic rate and, hence, the possibility of radial expansion (DeLucia & Smith 1987). The climatic variable most strongly correlated to radial growth is also summer temperature for the east and northeast Tibetan Plateau (Bräuning 2006), the source region of the Yangtze River (Liang et al 2008), the central Hengduan Mountains (Fan et al 2009a, Li et al 2011a, and the Western Sichuan Plateau (Shao & Fan 1999, Li et al 2010, 2011b.Correlation analysis indicated that spring (April) temperature also has biological relevance for interannual variations in tree growth at the high elevation sites, and similar results have been reported for the Western Himalayas of India and Nepal (Yadav et al 1997, Cook et al 2003. The positive influence of spring temperature on tree growth is evident, as high There is strong circumstantial evidence that winter temperatures play a major role in modulating mean climate-tree growth relationships.…”

Early summer temperature reconstruction in the eastern Tibetan plateau since ad 1440 using tree-ring width of Sabina tibetica

“…Negative influences of early summer warmth on tree growth were reported for S. przewalskii on the northeastern TP (Gou et al 2008;Liang et al 2010;Liu et al 2006;Shao et al 2010;Sheppard et al 2004;Zhang et al 2003). In the western Himalayas, warm summers also limit the growth of Juniperus polycarpos (Yadav et al 2010), Cedrus deodara (Yadav et al 1997(Yadav et al , 1999Yadav et al 2004) and Abies pindrow (Hughes 1992). In addition, Cai et al (2008) found the limiting effect of May-Jun temperature on tree growth of Pinus tabulaeformis from the southeastern Chinese Loess Plateau.…”