Fir tree-ring reconstruction of March-July precipitation in southern Moravia (Czech Republic), 1376-1996

Abstract

A ring-width chronology for fir Abies alba Mill. in southern Moravia (Czech Republic), compiled from historical wood and living trees, was used for the dendroclimatological reconstruction of March-July precipitation for the period 1376-1996. Based on a response function model, the precipitation series explains 38% of tree-ring width variability. In the years with thinner tree-rings, drier spring and summer seasons prevailed, whereas years with wider tree-rings indicate wetter conditions. The highest precipitation in the reconstructed series was found in the 1670s, 1710s and 1980s; the lowest in the 1380s, 1700s and, particularly, in the 1970s. Reconstruction after the 1950s is less reliable due to a weaker relationship between precipitation and fir growth. The 18th century was the driest and the 19th century the wettest in the last 600 yr. The comparison of the reconstructed March-July precipitation of southern Moravia with the Brno series (instrumental period) and with the Prague-Klementinum series (compiled from the quantitative interpretation of documentary evidence and instrumental measurements) shows a high degree of agreement, reflecting the similarities between these series over the instrumental period. During the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries the 2 proxy data sources -documentaries and tree-rings -are in satisfactory agreement with respect to those years with extremely thin or wide rings. KEY WORDS: Fir ring-width chronology · Precipitation reconstruction · Extreme tree-rings · Documentary evidence · Southern MoraviaResale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisher Clim Res 20: 223-239, 2002 the width of the tree-rings (see e.g. Richter & Eckstein 1990, Till & Guiot 1990, Serre-Bachet et al. 1992, Hughes et al. 1994, Stahle & Cleaveland 1994, Villalba et al. 1998, Cook et al. 1999, Briffa 2000, Stahle et al. 2000. In some cases the numbers of precipitation days have also been interpreted (Woodhouse & Meko 1997). Tree-ring chronologies from North America and Europe have also been used for the reconstruction of the North Atlantic Oscillation (Cook et al. 1998). In the construction of long tree-ring chronologies, dendrochronologists must work with unusually long-lived trees or they must extend the records obtained from living trees by piecing together or overlapping records from sources of ancient wood, such as archaeological, historical or naturally preserved (subfossil) remnants (Briffa 2000).In the Czech Republic dendroclimatological reconstructions have so far been paid only little attention, largely because of the absence of a suitable tree-ring series. Currently only the relationship between climatic characteristics and the radial growth of trees has been analysed (such as Sander 1991, Sander et al. 1995. The first dendroclimatological reconstruction for this area focussed on the temperature of the summer half-year for the period 1804-1989 on the basis of the chronology of maximal late-wood density of the spruce Picea abies (L.) Karst. from the region of the G...

Weather information in the diaries of the Premonstratensian Abbey at Hradisko, in the Czech Republic, 1693 – 1783

“…Apart from dendroclimatic knowledge (Brázdil et al, 2002a), documentary evidence provides the only source of information for the reconstruction of the climate of the Czech Lands with high temporal accuracy in the pre-instrumental period. The temporal and spatial discontinuity of the documentary data dictates that a mosaic of knowledge has to be built gradually from them, which, in turn, is of use in deriving series of temperature and precipitation indices and their subsequent quantitative reconstruction.…”

Historical Climatology In Europe – The State Of The Art

“…For this reason they can be used both for verification of extreme values in natural proxies such as tree rings (see e.g. Vogel et al, 1996;Brázdil et al, 2002a) and for detailed descriptions of past weather such as after major volcanic eruptions (see e.g. Stothers, 1996Stothers, , 1999Stothers, , 2000Demarée et al, 1998;Demarée and Ogilvie, 2001).…”

Droughts in the Czech Lands, 1090–2012 AD

“…Such a comparison has been made for March-July precipitation totals reconstructed from fir TRW (Brázdil et al, 2002) and for May-June Z-index values derived from the same type of proxy records (Büntgen et al, 2011a). Any direct comparison is complicated by the fact that indices derived from documentary evidence characterise frequency of events relatively well but assessment of the intensity of droughts may be partly biased by the somewhat subjective process of interpreting historical reports.…”

“…However, only tree rings are currently available for the Czech Lands. For example, fir tree rings from southern Moravia have been used for reconstruction of March-July precipitation totals in the period of 1376-1996 AD (Brázdil et al, 2002) and Z-index for May-June in the 1500-2008 period (Büntgen et al, 2011a).…”