Abstract. Given the short span of instrumental precipitationrecords in the South American Altiplano, longer-term hydroclimatic recordsare needed to understand the nature of climate variability and to improvethe predictability of precipitation, a key natural resource for thesocioeconomic development in the Altiplano and adjacent arid lowlands. Inthis region grows Polylepis tarapacana, a long-lived tree species that is very sensitive tohydroclimatic changes and has been widely used for tree-ring studies in thecentral and southern Altiplano. However, in the northern sector of thePeruvian and Chilean Altiplano (16–19∘ S)still exists a gap of high-resolution hydroclimatic data based on tree-ringrecords. Our study provides an overview of the temporal evolution of thelate-spring–mid-summer precipitation for the period 1625–2013 CE at thenorthern South American Altiplano, allowing for the identification of wet ordry periods based on a regional reconstruction from three P. tarapacana chronologies. Anincrease in the occurrence of extreme dry events, together with a decreasingtrend in the reconstructed precipitation, has been recorded since the 1970sin the northern Altiplano within the context of the last ∼4 centuries. The average precipitation over the last 17 years stands outas the driest in our 389-year reconstruction. We reveal a temporal andspatial synchrony across the Altiplano region of dry conditions since themid-1970s. Independent tree-ring-based hydroclimate reconstructions andseveral paleoclimatic records based on other proxies available for thetropical Andes record this synchrony. The influence of El Niño–SouthernOscillation (ENSO) on the northern Altiplano precipitation was detected byour rainfall reconstruction that showed past drier conditions in our studyregion associated with ENSO warm events. The spectral properties of therainfall reconstruction showed strong imprints of ENSO variability atdecadal, sub-decadal, and inter-annual timescales, in particular from thePacific NIÑO 3 sector. Overall, the recent reduction in precipitation incomparison with previous centuries, the increase in extreme dry events andthe coupling between precipitation and ENSO variability reported by thiswork is essential information in the context of the growing demand for waterresources in the Altiplano. This study will contribute to a betterunderstanding of the vulnerability and resilience of the region to theprojected evapotranspiration increase for the 21st century associated withglobal warming.
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Streamflow Variability Indicated by False Rings in Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum (L.) Rich.)
Despite growing in wet lowland and riparian settings, Taxodium distichum (L.) Rich. (bald cypress) has a strong response to hydroclimate variability, and tree ring chronologies derived from bald cypress have been used extensively to reconstruct drought, precipitation and streamflow. Previous studies have also demonstrated that false rings in bald cypress appear to be the result of variations in water availability during the growing season. In this study 28 trees from two sites located adjacent to the Choctawhatchee River in Northwestern Florida, USA were used to develop a false ring record extending from 1881 to 2014. Twenty false ring events were recorded during the available instrumental era (1931–2014). This record was compared with daily and monthly streamflow data from a nearby gage. All 20 of the false-ring events recorded during the instrumental period occurred during years in which greatly increased streamflow occurred late in the growing season. Many of these wet events appear to be the result of rainfall resulting from landfalling tropical cyclones. We also found that the intra-annual position of false rings within growth rings reflects streamflow variability and combining the false-ring record with tree ring width chronologies improves the estimation of overall summer streamflow by 14%. Future work using these and other quantitative approaches for the identification and measurement of false ring variables in tree rings may improve tree-ring reconstructions of streamflow and potentially the record of tropical cyclone rainfall events.
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- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10374020
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Forests
- Volume:
- 11
- Issue:
- 10
- ISSN:
- 1999-4907
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1100
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract We describe the utility of false rings in
Taxodium distichum (i.e. baldcypress) as a proxy for hydroclimatic extreme events in three different river basins (Pascagoula, Mobile, and Choctawhatchee) that discharge into the northern Gulf of Mexico. False rings occur as a result of a change in the environmental limiting resource for tree stem growth, and inT. distichum , false ring production is usually a result of increases in mid-growing season water availability. Our results show that false ring occurrence (from 1931 to 2018) is similar across sites but occur in different years, suggesting that false ring production is indicative of tree response to its local environment. False ring production inT. distichum has previously been correlated with summer streamflow, the season when tropical cyclone precipitation (TCP) is highest. To assess a stand-wide response, we define high false ring (HFR) years as all years whenT. distichum , and false ring production in smaller river basins captures local TCP better than larger river basins. Additionally, HFR years coincide with summers of anomalously high precipitation, anomalously low temperatures, and a positive phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation. 77% of HFR years occur in seasons when there is heavy tropical cyclone activity near sample sites, building a foundation to use false ring records as robust TCP proxies with hydroclimate reconstruction potential. -
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Abstract Mean daily to monthly precipitation averages peak in late July over eastern Colorado and some of the most damaging Front Range flash floods have occurred because of extreme 1-day rainfall events during this period. Tree-ring chronologies of adjusted latewood width in ponderosa pine from eastern Colorado are highly correlated with the highest 1-day rainfall totals occurring during this 2-week precipitation maximum in late July. A regional average of four adjusted latewood chronologies from eastern Colorado was used to reconstruct the single wettest day observed during the last two weeks of July. The regional chronology was calibrated with the CPC 0.25° × 0.25° Daily U.S. Unified Gauge-Based Analysis of Precipitation dataset and explains 65% of the variance in the highest 1-day late July precipitation totals in the instrumental data from 1948 to 1997. The reconstruction and instrumental data extend fully from 1779 to 2019 and indicate that the frequency of 1-day rainfall extremes in late July has increased since the late eighteenth century. The largest instrumental and reconstructed 1-day precipitation extremes are most commonly associated with the intrusion of a major frontal system into a deep layer of atmospheric moisture across eastern Colorado. These general synoptic conditions have been previously linked to extreme localized rainfall totals and widespread thunderstorm activity over Colorado during the summer season. Chronologies of adjusted latewood width in semiarid eastern Colorado constitute a proxy of weather time-scale rainfall events useful for investigations of long-term variability and for framing natural and potential anthropogenic forcing of precipitation extremes during this 2-week precipitation maximum in a long historical perspective.
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Abstract Instrumental observations indicate that Amazon precipitation and streamflow extremes have increased during the last 40 years, possibly due to anthropogenic changes and natural variability. How unprecedented these changes might be is difficult to determine because some paleoclimatic, instrumental, and climate model simulations suggest that Amazonian precipitation and streamflow may be subject to multidecadal variability with return intervals longer than most direct observations. A new 258‐
year long tree‐ring chronology ofCedrela odorata -
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Abstract Recent severe droughts, extreme floods, and increasing differences between seasonal high and low flows on the Amazon River may represent a twenty-first-century increase in the amplitude of the hydrologic cycle over the Amazon Basin. These precipitation and streamflow changes may have arisen from natural ocean–atmospheric variability, deforestation within the drainage basin of the Amazon River, or anthropogenic climate change. Tree-ring reconstructions of wet-season precipitation extremes, substantiated with historical accounts of climate and river levels on the Amazon River and in northeast Brazil found in the Brazilian Digital Library, indicate that the recent river-level extremes on the Amazon may have been equaled or possibly exceeded during the preinstrumental nineteenth century. The “Forgotten Drought” of 1865 was the lowest wet-season rainfall total reconstructed with tree-rings in the eastern Amazon from 1790 to 2016 and appears to have been one of the lowest stream levels observed on the Amazon River during the historical era according to first-hand descriptions by Louis Agassiz, his Brazilian colleague João Martins da Silva Coutinho, and others. Heavy rains and flooding are described during most of the tree-ring-reconstructed wet extremes, including the complete inundation of “First Street” in Santarem, Brazil, in 1859 and the overtopping of the Bittencourt Bridge in Manaus, Brazil, in 1892. These extremes in the tree-ring estimates and historical observations indicate that recent high and low flow anomalies on the Amazon River may not have exceeded the natural variability of precipitation and streamflow during the nineteenth century.
Significance Statement Proxy tree-ring and historical evidence for precipitation extremes during the preinstrumental nineteenth century indicate that recent floods and droughts on the Amazon River may have not yet exceeded the range of natural hydroclimatic variability.
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3390/f11101100
