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Relationship of Temperature and Light Ring Formation at Subarctic Treeline and Implications for Climate Reconstruction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

David K. Yamaguchi ,
Louise Filion  and
Melissa Savage
David K. Yamaguchi
Affiliation:
Mountain Research Station and Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR), University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado 80309
Louise Filion
Affiliation:
Centre d'études nordiques, Université Laval, Sainte-Foy, Québec, Canada G1K 7P4
Melissa Savage
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90024
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Abstract

During the past 8 centuries, light rings (LRs) have occasionally formed in black spruce (Picea mariana) at treeline near Bush Lake, northern Quebec (L. Filion, S. Payette, L. Gauthier, and Y. Boutin, 1986, Quaternary Research 26, 272-279; A. Delwaide, L. Filion, and S. Fayette, 1991, Canadian Journal of Forest Research 21, 1828-1832). New analyses of climate data compiled during the period of overlapping tree-ring and instrumental records show that years of LR formation at Bush Lake have unusually cool May, June, August, and September temperatures. The analyses also show that August-September temperatures strongly correlate with May-July temperatures. Thus, late spring and entire growing-season temperatures influence LR formation at subarctic treeline. LRs formed in at least 5% of the trees at Bush Lake when May-September mean temperatures at Inukjuak fell below 4.2°C and August-September mean temperatures fell below 6.7°C. These threshold temperature/LR relationships can be used to infer limiting summer temperatures during the period preceding instrumental records. For example, the LR record suggests that May-September temperatures at northern Quebec treeline dropped below 4.2°C in A.D. 1601 after a major volcanic eruption of unknown source. Visual assessments of LR occurrence provide a new approach for extracting quantitative paleoclimatic information from tree rings.

Type
Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , March 1993 , pp. 256 - 262
Copyright
University of Washington

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