Tree Rings and Climate

This classic title, originally printed in 1976, contains a lucid description and summary of basic dendrochronology, especially its application to climatic reconstructions that are now a highly valued and objective tool for putting future climatic changes in perspective with past climatic history for up to several thousand years. The book's author, Professor Harold Fritts, has been a leader and pioneer in dendrochronology, dendroclimatology and modeling the tree growth environmental response system for 35 years. He has over 100 publications including three books. Tree Rings and Climate was his second book, which was written for the non-botanist and non-statistician who wish to understand the principles governing tree ring formation and their analysis to reveal past history, climate and dating of past events. The basic botanical processes governing tree ring formation are covered in Chapters 1-5. Chapter 6 deals with some of the simple statistics and what they reveal about the tree response to environmental and physiological variables. This includes a very basic discussion of matrix algebra, eigenvectors and principal components as used in the early works of tree ring analysis. The last three chapters deal with calibration, interpretation, reconstruction and verification or climate reconstructions from tree-ring data. An appendix is included of scientific and common names of trees, bibliography to the pre-1976 literature, a glossary of terms, an author index and a subject index. Professor Fritts has captured and described the basic principles of the field in a way that has not lost value in the ensuing 25 years. Tree Rings and Climate remains the basic primer of the field in spite of the exponential growth of dendrochronology and its expansion and application to a wide variety of disciplines in the last 25 years. "Despite its age, this remains a must-have volume for anyone who wants a good grounding in the subject, at a reasonable price, which means it can be bought by students, and should certainly be in those university libraries that do not already have a well-thumbed copy." Journal of Quaternary Science (2004) 19, 99 - 100 Tree Rings and Climate deals with the principles of dendrochronology, with emphasis on tree-ring studies involving climate-related problems. This book looks at the spatial and temporal variations in tree-ring growth and how they can be used to reconstruct past climate. Factors and conditions that appear most relevant to tree-ring research are highlighted. Comprised of nine chapters, this book opens with an overview of the basic biological facts and principles of tree growth, as well as the most important terms, principles, and concepts of dendrochronology. The discussion then shifts to the basic biology governing the response of ring width to variation in climate; systematic variations in the width and cell structure of annual tree rings; and the significance of tree growth and structure to dendroclimatology. The movement of materials and internal water relations of trees are also considered, along with photosynthesis, respiration, and the climatic and environmental system. Models of the growth-climate relationships as well as the basic statistics and methods of analysis of these relationships are described. The final chapter includes a general discussion of dendroclimatographic data and presents examples of statistical models that are useful for reconstructing spatial variations in climate. This monograph will be of interest to climatologists, college students, and practitioners in fields such as botany, archaeology, hydrology, oceanography, biology, physiology, forestry, and geophysics. Title ......Page 2 Preface ......Page 4 1. Dendrochronology and Dendroclimatology ......Page 9 2. Growth and Structure ......Page 63 3. Basic Physiological Processes: Movement of Materials and Water Relations ......Page 126 4. Basic Physiological Processes: Food Synthesis and Assimilation of Cell Constituents ......Page 164 5. The Climate-Growth System ......Page 215 6. The Statistics of Ring-Width and Climatic Data ......Page 254 7. Calibration ......Page 320 8. Interpretation of Climatic Calibrations, Reconstruction, and Verification ......Page 384 9. Reconstructing Spatial Variations in Climate ......Page 442 Appendix. Scientific and Common Names of Trees ......Page 514 Bibliography ......Page 517 Glossary ......Page 536 Author Index ......Page 551 Subject Index ......Page 557