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Abstract How forests respond to accelerated climate change will affect the terrestrial carbon cycle. To better understand these responses, more examples are needed to assess how tree growth rates react to abrupt changes in growing‐season temperatures. Here we use a natural experiment in which a glacier's fluctuations exposed a temperate rainforest to changes in summer temperatures of similar magnitude to those predicted to occur by 2050. We hypothesized that the onset of glacier‐accentuated temperature trends would act to increase the variance in stand‐level tree growth rates, a proxy for forest net primary productivity. Instead, dendrochronological records reveal that the growth rates of five, co‐occurring conifer species became less synchronous, and this diversification of species responses acted to reduce the variance and to increase the stability of community‐wide growth rates. These results warrant further inquiry into how climate‐induced changes in tree‐growth diversity may help stabilize future ecosystem services like forest carbon storage. 

This archived Paleoclimatology Study is available from the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), under the World Data Service (WDS) for Paleoclimatology. The associated NCEI study type is Tree Ring. The data include parameters of tree ring with a geographic location of Ohio, United States Of America. The time period coverage is from 285 to -67 in calendar years before present (BP). See metadata information for parameter and study location details. Please cite this study when using the data. 

This archived Paleoclimatology Study is available from the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), under the World Data Service (WDS) for Paleoclimatology. The associated NCEI study type is Tree Ring. The data include parameters of tree ring with a geographic location of Ohio, United States Of America. The time period coverage is from 36 to -70 in calendar years before present (BP). See metadata information for parameter and study location details. Please cite this study when using the data. 

This archived Paleoclimatology Study is available from the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), under the World Data Service (WDS) for Paleoclimatology. The associated NCEI study type is Tree Ring. The data include parameters of tree ring with a geographic location of Ohio, United States Of America. The time period coverage is from 38 to -71 in calendar years before present (BP). See metadata information for parameter and study location details. Please cite this study when using the data. 

This archived Paleoclimatology Study is available from the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), under the World Data Service (WDS) for Paleoclimatology. The associated NCEI study type is Tree Ring. The data include parameters of tree ring with a geographic location of Ohio, United States Of America. The time period coverage is from 150 to -70 in calendar years before present (BP). See metadata information for parameter and study location details. Please cite this study when using the data. 

In Southeast Alaska, many stands of yellow-cedar (Callitropsis nootkatensis (D. Don) Oerst. ex D.P. Little; hereinafter “YC”) contain numerous standing, dead snags. Snag-age estimates based on tree morphology have been used to support the interpretation that a warming climate after ca. 1880 has triggered unprecedented YC dieback. Here, we present new estimates of YC snag longevity by cross-dating 61 snags with morphologies that suggest they stood dead for extended periods. All but four of these snags have lost their outermost rings to decay, so we estimate when they died using a new method based on wood-ablation rates measured in six living trees that display partial cambial dieback. The results indicate that ∼59% of YC snags that lost their branches to decay (Class 5 snags) have remained standing for >200 years, and some for as long as 450 years (snag longevity mean ± SD: 233 ± 92 years). These findings, along with supporting evidence from historical photos, dendrochronology, and snag-morphology surveys in the published literature suggest that episodes of YC dieback also occurred before 1880 and before significant anthropogenic warming began. The roles played by climate change in these earlier dieback events remain to be further explored.