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Climate signals in the ring widths and stable carbon, hydrogen and oxygen isotopic composition of Larix decidua growing at the forest limit in the southeastern European Alps

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Abstract

The southeastern border of the European Alps is not well resourced with high-resolution climate proxies and experiences a distinct climatic regime from the northern and western Alpine zones. Here, we present new high-resolution climatic proxies (AD 1907–2006) from ring widths and stable carbon (δ13C), non-exchangeable hydrogen (δ2H) and oxygen (δ18O) isotope ratios of cellulose extracted from Larix decidua tree rings, growing at the forest limit in the southeastern European Alps (Slovenia). δ13C, δ2H and δ18O are strongly (p < 0.001) and positively correlated with each other. June temperature has the strongest control on tree ring width (TRW), while later summer conditions (July–August) influence the stable isotope composition. All four proxies are strongly correlated (r > 0.4; p < 0.001) with summer temperature and also sunshine hours, while precipitation has less impact. A combination of TRW and δ13C provides the greatest potential for reconstructing past temperatures (June–August) with significant (p < 0.001) correlations with gridded temperatures extending across a very large part of southern and western Europe west of the Carpathian Mountains. The water isotopes (oxygen and hydrogen) record conditions in the Adriatic and Mediterranean, which are the source area for the air masses that bring precipitation to this region giving strong correlations with temperatures in southern Italy and the western part of the Balkan Peninsula. Combining proxies with different spatial and temporal signals allows the strength and spatial footprint of climate signals to be enhanced. These findings open new perspectives for climate reconstruction in the southeastern European Alps and Western Balkans.

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded by the EU Millennium Project (017008), UK Natural Environment Research Council—UK NERC NE/B/501504 (NJL), Slovenian research agency—Young researcher program (PH). We acknowledge support from the Climate Change Consortium of Wales (IR) and the European Cooperation in Science and Technology—COST Action FP0903 (PH). We acknowledge Program and Research group Forest Biology, Ecology and Technology (P4-0107). We would like to thank Matthias Saurer, Anne Kress, Giles Young, Jožica Gričar, Mojca Dolinar and Nathan McDowell for helpful discussion and valuable comments. We would like to thank also Špela Jagodic and Robert Krajnc for their assistance at the field work and measurements, Miha Demšar for providing meteorological data and Anna Ratcliffe for preparing the map of the sites.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Yield and Silviculture, Slovenian Forestry Institute, Večna pot 2, 1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Polona Hafner & Tom Levanič

  2. Department of Geography, Swansea University, Swansea, SA2 8PP, UK

    Iain Robertson, Danny McCarroll, Neil J. Loader, Mary Gagen & Roderick J. Bale

  3. Department of Archaeology, University of Wales, Trinity Saint David, Lampeter, SA48 7ED, UK

    Roderick J. Bale

  4. Dating Laboratory, Finnish Museum of Natural History, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 64, 00014, Helsinki, Finland

    Högne Jungner, Eloni Sonninen & Emmi Hilasvuori

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  1. Polona Hafner
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Correspondence to Polona Hafner.

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Communicated by G. Wieser.

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Hafner, P., Robertson, I., McCarroll, D. et al. Climate signals in the ring widths and stable carbon, hydrogen and oxygen isotopic composition of Larix decidua growing at the forest limit in the southeastern European Alps. Trees 25, 1141–1154 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-011-0589-z

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