HR: 1340h
AN: GC13A-0938    [Abstracts]
TI: Variations in the Relationship Between Precipitation and Tree Growth in the North-Central Rocky Mountains Identified Using a Tree-Ring Network
AU: * Wise, E
EM: ekwise@email.arizona.edu
AF: University of Arizona, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research and Department of Geography, Harvill Building, Box 2, Tucson, AZ 85721, United States
AB: Much of the western United States is in the midst of a multi-year drought that has placed a renewed sense of urgency on water availability issues. The characterization of variability over relevant space and time scales has emerged as one of the top needs concerning the hydrological cycle, but understanding hydroclimatic variability at decadal and longer time scales has been limited by instrumental data that are both spatially and temporally inadequate. The reconstruction of moisture variables from tree-rings has been recognized as an important source of information on long-term water supply variability. Moisture variables of interest may include annual precipitation, snowpack, summer precipitation, and streamflow. Trees in closely co-located sites can vary widely in the signal they reflect, particularly in a region with the complex topography and hydroclimatic variability that is seen in the north-central Rocky Mountains. In this study, climatic and geospatial information was combined with tree-ring chronologies in order to better-understand factors determining variations in the response of tree growth to a particular precipitation signal. Resulting spatial variability in moisture seasonality and growth response provide insight into the region's moisture patterns and better characterization of the region's hydroclimatic variability.
DE: 1616 Climate variability (1635, 3305, 3309, 4215, 4513)
DE: 1833 Hydroclimatology
DE: 3309 Climatology (1616, 1620, 3305, 4215, 8408)
DE: 3344 Paleoclimatology (0473, 4900)
DE: 4920 Dendrochronology
SC: Global Environmental Change [GC]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting