Climatic signal in tree-ring width chronologies of European Russia: spatial change and perspectives for paleoclimatic reconstructions Vladimir Matskovsky Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia PAGES 2 nd Young Scientists Meeting The Past: A Compass for Future Earth February 2013, Goa, India Institute of Geography RAS Moscow, Russia Tree-Ring Laboratory

Motivation 2/24 Vladimir Matskovsky Climatic signal in tree-ring width chronologies of European Russia Tree rings are a unique source of paleoclimatic information because of precise dating of each proxy value European part of Russia is still poorly studied in terms of dendroclimatology, comparing to neighboring regions: Fennoscandia and Urals Mountains Long tree-ring width chronologies have mostly been used for dendrochronological dating and havent been analyzed for its paleoclimatic potential Global map of high-resolution reconstructions is lacking data from this region

Motivation 3/24 Vladimir Matskovsky Climatic signal in tree-ring width chronologies of European Russia …chronological errors will accumulate back in time as missing rings are encountered.

Constructing long chronologies for European Russia 4/24 Vladimir Matskovsky Climatic signal in tree-ring width chronologies of European Russia 70°N 60°E 50°N 20°E

Identifying climatic signal: objectives 5/24 Vladimir Matskovsky Climatic signal in tree-ring width chronologies of European Russia The main objective: To extract climatic signal from tree-ring width chronologies of conifers in European Russia Tasks: To test correlations with different climatic parameters that can possibly influence tree growth To compare long chronologies with climatic reconstructions To identify weather conditions in pointer years for the instrumental period To compare pointer years of long chronologies with historical data about extreme climatic events

Identifying climatic signal: materials and methods 6/24 Vladimir Matskovsky Climatic signal in tree-ring width chronologies of European Russia Pine (Pinus sylvestris ) Spruce (Picea abies, obovata) Larch (Larix sibirica) Chronologies of living trees

Identifying climatic signal: materials and methods 7/24 Vladimir Matskovsky Climatic signal in tree-ring width chronologies of European Russia Climate data Daily and monthly precipitation and temperature values from more then 200 meteostations Gridded meteodata, 0,5° latitude and longitude (CRU TS 3.0) Model data: Soil moisture, Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI), Reanalysis. Atmospheric circulation indexes: NAO, SCAND, etc.

Identifying climatic signal: materials and methods 8/24 Vladimir Matskovsky Climatic signal in tree-ring width chronologies of European Russia Methods Correlation analysis Pointer years analysis Comparison with historical data Comparison with climate reconstructions

Identifying climatic signal: results 9/24 Vladimir Matskovsky Climatic signal in tree-ring width chronologies of European Russia Climatic response of tree ring chronologies Pine Minimum air temperatures (May-August)

Identifying climatic signal: results 10/24 Vladimir Matskovsky Climatic signal in tree-ring width chronologies of European Russia Climatic response of tree ring chronologies Pine Soil moisture (May)

Identifying climatic signal: results 11/24 Vladimir Matskovsky Climatic signal in tree-ring width chronologies of European Russia Climatic response of tree ring chronologies Pine Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) (July)

Identifying climatic signal: results 12/24 Vladimir Matskovsky Climatic signal in tree-ring width chronologies of European Russia Climatic response of tree ring chronologies Pine Wet day frequency (June-July)

Identifying climatic signal: results 13/24 Vladimir Matskovsky Climatic signal in tree-ring width chronologies of European Russia Climatic response of tree ring chronologies Spruce Mean air temperatures (June-July)

Identifying climatic signal: results 14/24 Vladimir Matskovsky Climatic signal in tree-ring width chronologies of European Russia Climatic response of tree ring chronologies Spruce Precipitation (July)

Identifying climatic signal: results 15/24 Vladimir Matskovsky Climatic signal in tree-ring width chronologies of European Russia Climatic response of tree ring chronologies Larch Minimum air temperatures (June)

Identifying climatic signal: results 16/24 Vladimir Matskovsky Climatic signal in tree-ring width chronologies of European Russia Climatic response of tree ring chronologies Larch Relative air humidity (August)

Identifying climatic signal: results 17/24 Vladimir Matskovsky Climatic signal in tree-ring width chronologies of European Russia Weather conditions forming pointer years X-IX X-III IV-IX V-VIII VI-VII X-IX X-III IV-IX V-VIII VI-VII

Paleoclimatic information in long chronologies 18/24 Vladimir Matskovsky Climatic signal in tree-ring width chronologies of European Russia z-scores Years Chronology «Vologda» Mann and Jones, 2003, R = 0.59 DArrigo et al., 2006, R=0.35

Paleoclimatic information in long chronologies 19/24 Vladimir Matskovsky Climatic signal in tree-ring width chronologies of European Russia z-scores Years «Solovki» chronology Kononov et al., 2009, R = 0.61

«Solovki» chronology Solar activity (Delaygue and Bard, 2010), R = 0.63 Paleoclimatic information in long chronologies 20/24 Vladimir Matskovsky Climatic signal in tree-ring width chronologies of European Russia z-scores Years

Paleoclimatic information in long chronologies 21/24 Vladimir Matskovsky Climatic signal in tree-ring width chronologies of European Russia Positive «pointer years» Negative «pointer years» All the «pointer years» Century Frequency

Summary 22/24 Vladimir Matskovsky Climatic signal in tree-ring width chronologies of European Russia Why? (objectives) To understand what climate information can be extracted from long tree-ring width chronologies in European Russia How? (materials and methods) We used analysis of spatial correlations, pointer years analysis and comparison with historical data and climate reconstructions What? (results) We showed that climatic response is changing along latitudinal gradient, trees are more temperature sensitive in the north and moisture sensitive in the south – these results allow interpretation of long chronologies; Pointer years analysis showed weather conditions that lead to anomalous tree growth; Ppointer years coincide with historical data, chronologies show correlation with climate reconstructions – it demonstrates good paleoclimatic potential of tree-ring width chronologies in this region Perspectives New long chronologies Other proxies: stable isotopes, maximum latewood density Building regional reconstructions and including them into large projects (like PAGES 2k Network)

Acknowledgements 23/24 Vladimir Matskovsky Climatic signal in tree-ring width chronologies of European Russia Colleagues from our Tree-ring laboratory for their contribution in this research PAGES for the possibility to give a talk on the 2 nd YSM PAGES and Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research for financial support that made my participation in this meeting possible

Thanks for your attention!