Continuing upward trend in Mt Read Huon pine ring widths - Temperature or divergence?

KJ Allen; ER Cook; BM Buckley; SH Larsen; DM Drew; GM Downes; RJ Francey; MJ Peterson; PJ Baker

Journal article

Continuing upward trend in Mt Read Huon pine ring widths - Temperature or divergence?

KJ Allen, ER Cook, BM Buckley, SH Larsen, DM Drew, GM Downes, RJ Francey, MJ Peterson, PJ Baker

Quaternary Science Reviews | PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD | Published : 2014

DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2014.08.003

Abstract

To date, no attempt has been made to assess the presence or otherwise of the "Divergence Problem" (DP) in existing multi-millennial Southern Hemisphere tree-ring chronologies. We have updated the iconic Mt Read Huon pine chronology from Tasmania, southeastern Australia, to now include the warmest decade on record, AD 2000-2010, and used the Kalman Filter (KF) to examine it for signs of divergence against four different temperature series available for the region. Ring-width growth for the past two decades is statistically unprecedented for the past 1048 years. Although we have identified a decoupling between temperature and growth in the past two decades, the relationship between some of the..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Patrick Baker Author

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Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council

Funding Acknowledgements

We thank two anonymous reviewers whose comments have greatly improved this work. Michael Grose provided the AWAP data and Wasyl Drosdowsky kindly provided the Drosdowsky L-index based on eastern Australian stations. We thank David Pepper for advice concerning implied assimilation increases in the Mt Read trees related to the CO<INF>2</INF> fertilisation effect. This research was supported by the Australian Research Council research grant DP 120104320 and Future Fellowship FT120100715 to PJB, and by Herman Slade foundation grant HSF 09/5 to DD, GD, KA and PJB. Parks Tasmania granted permission to resample the Mt Read site in early 2010. Michael Goddard and Scott Nichols assisted with editing.