Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T17:05:52.231Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Bimillennial-Length Tree-Ring Reconstruction of Precipitation for the Tavaputs Plateau, Northeastern Utah

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Troy A. Knight ,
David M. Meko  and
Christopher H. Baisan
Troy A. Knight*
Affiliation:
Department of Geography and Regional Development, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
David M. Meko
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
Christopher H. Baisan
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Fax: +1 520 621 2889. E-mail address:[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Despite the extensive network of moisture-sensitive tree-ring chronologies in western North America, relatively few are long enough to document climatic variability before and during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) ca. AD 800-1300. We developed a 2300-yr tree-ring chronology extending to 323 BC utilizing live and remnant Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) from the Tavaputs Plateau in northeastern Utah. A resulting regression model accounts for 70% of the variance of precipitation for the AD 1918–2005 calibration period. Extreme wet and dry periods without modern analogues were identified in the reconstruction. The MCA is marked by several prolonged droughts, especially prominent in the mid AD 1100s and late 1200s, and a lack of wet or dry single-year extremes. The frequency of extended droughts is not markedly different, however, than before or after the MCA. A drought in the early AD 500s surpasses in magnitude any other drought during the last 1800 yr. A set of four long high-resolution records suggests this drought decreased in severity toward the south in the western United States. The spatial pattern is consistent with the western dipole of moisture anomaly driven by El Niño and is also similar to the spatial footprint of the AD 1930s "Dust Bowl" drought.

Keywords

Tree-ringsDendroclimatologyDroughtClimateUtah
Type
Original Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 73 , Issue 1 , January 2010 , pp. 107 - 117
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, C.D., Breshears, D.D., (1998). Drought-induced shift of a forest-woodland ecotone: rapid landscape response to a climate variation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 95, 14839–14842.Google Scholar
Bloomfield, P., (2000). Fourier Analysis of Time Series: An Introduction.second editionJohn Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York.261.Google Scholar
Breshears, D.D., Cobb, N.S., Rich, P.M., Price, K.P., Allen, C.D., Balice, R.G., Romme, W.H., Kastens, J.H., Floyd, M.L., Belnap, J., Anderson, J.J., Myers, O.B., Meyer, C.W., (2005). Regional vegetational die-off in response to global-change-type drought. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 102, 42, 15144–15148.Google Scholar
Benson, L., Kashgarian, M., Rye, R., Lund, S., Paillet, F., Smoot, J., Kester, C., Mensing, S., Meko, D., Lindström, S., (2002). Holocene multidecadal and multicentennial droughts affecting Northern California and Nevada. Quaternary Science Reviews 21, 659–682.Google Scholar
Benson, L.V., Berry, M.S., Jolie, E.A., Spangler, J.D., Stahle, D.W., Hattori, E.M., (2007). Possible impacts of early 11th, middle 12th, and late 13th century droughts on western Native Americans and the Mississippian Cahokians. Quaternary Science Reviews 26, 336–350.Google Scholar
Brown, D.P., Comrie, A.C., (2004). A winter ‘dipole’ in the western United States associated with multidecadal ENSO variability. Geophysical Research Letters 31, L09203.Google Scholar
Carson, E.C., Munroe, J.S., (2005). Tree-ring based streamflow reconstruction for Ashley Creek, northeastern Utah: implications for palaeohydrology of the southern Uinta Mountains. The Holocene 15, 4, 602–611.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, E.R., (1985). A Time Series Approach to Tree-Ring Standardization . Ph.D. dissertation, University of Arizona, Tucson.Google Scholar
Cook, E.R., Peters, K., (1981). The smoothing spline: a new approach to standardizing forest interior tree-ring width series for dendroclimatic studies. Tree-Ring Bulletin 41, 45–53.Google Scholar
Cook, E.R., Briffa, K.R., Meko, D.M., Graybill, D.S., Funkhouser, G., (1995). The ‘segment length curse’ in long tree-ring chronology development for paleoclimatic studies. The Holocene 5, 2, 229–237.Google Scholar
Cook, E.R., Woodhouse, C.A., Eakin, C.M., Meko, D.M., Stahle, D.W., (2004). Long-term aridity changes in the western United States. Science 306, 1015–1018.Google Scholar
Cook, E.R., Seager, R., Cane, M.A., Stahle, D.W., (2007). North American drought: reconstructions, causes, and consequences. Earth-Science Reviews 81, 91–134.Google Scholar
Cook, E.R.et al., (2008). North American Summer PDSI Reconstructions. Version 2a. IGBP PAGES/World Data Center for Paleoclimatology . Data Contribution Series # 2008-046. NOAA/NGDC Paleoclimatology Program, (Boulder CO). USA.Google Scholar
Davies, R.B., Harte, D.S., (1987). Tests for the Hurst effect. Biometrika 74, 95–102.Google Scholar
Dean, J.S., Euler, R.C., Gumerman, G.G., Plog, F., Hevly, R.H., Karlstrom, T.N.V., (1985). Human behavior, demography, and the paleoenvironment on the Colorado Plateaus. American Antiquity 50, 3, 537–554.Google Scholar
Deitrich, C.R., Newsam, G.N., (1997). Fast and exact simulation of stationary Gaussian processes through circulant embedding of the covariance matrix. SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing 18, 4, 1088–1107.Google Scholar
Fritts, H.C., (1976). Tree Rings and Climate. The Blackburn Press, Caldwell, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Fritts, H.C., Guiot, J., Gordon, G.A., (1990). Verification. Cook, E.R., Kairiukstis, L.A. Methods of Dendrochronology, Applications in the Environmental Sciences.Kluwer Academic Publishers, 178–185.Google Scholar
Graham, N.E., Hughes, M.K., Ammann, C.M., Cobb, K.C., Hoerling, M.P., Kennett, D.J., Kennett, J.P., Rein, B., Stott, L., Wigand, P.E., Xu, T., (2007). Tropical Pacific – mid latitude teleconnections in medieval times. Climatic Change 83, 241–285.Google Scholar
Gray, S.T., Jackson, S.T., Betancourt, J.L., (2004). Tree-ring based reconstructions of interannual to decadal precipitation variability for northeastern Utah since 1226 A.D. Journal of the American Water Resources Association 40, 940–960.Google Scholar
Grissino-Mayer, H.D., Dean, J.S., Meko, D.M., Swetnam, T.W., (1996). A 2129-reconstruction of precipitation for northwestern New Mexico. Tree-rings, Environment, and Humanity. Radiocarbon, Tucson.191–204.Google Scholar
Gershunov, A. and Barnett, T.P., (1998). Interdecadal modulation of ENSO teleconnections. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herweijer, C., Seager, R., Cook, E.R., Emile-Geay, J., (2007). North American droughts of the last millennium from a gridded network of tree-ring data. Journal of Climate 20, 1353–1376.Google Scholar
Hidalgo, H.G., Dracup, J.A., (2003). ENSO and PDO effects of hydroclimatic variations of the upper Colorado River Basin. Journal of Hydrometeorology 4, 5–23.Google Scholar
Holmes, R.L., (1983). Computer assisted quality control in tree-ring dating and measurement. Tree-Ring Bulletin 43, 69–78.Google Scholar
Hughes, M.K., Brown, P.M., (1992). Drought frequency in central California since 101 B.C. recorded from giant sequoia tree rings. Climate Dynamics 6, 161–167.Google Scholar
Hughes, M.K., Diaz, H.F., (1994). Was there a "Medieval Warm Period", and if so, where and when?. Climatic Change 26, 109–142.Google Scholar
Hughes, M.K., Funkhouser, G., (1998). Extremes of moisture reconstructed from tree-rings. Beniston, M., Innes, J.L. The Impacts of Climate Variability on Forests. Lecture Notes in the Earth Sciences 74, Springer-Verlag, Berlin.99–107.Google Scholar
Hughes, M.K., Graumlich, L.J., (1996). Multimillennial dendroclimatic records from western North America. Bradley, R.S., Jones, P.D., Jouzel, J. Climatic Variations and Forcing Mechanisms of the Last 2000 Years.Springer Verlag, Berlin.109–124.Google Scholar
Kloor, K., (2007). The Vanishing Fremont. Science 318, 1540–1543.Google Scholar
MacDonald, G.M., Tingstad, A.H., (2007). Recent and multicentennial precipitation variability and drought occurrence in the Uinta Mountains region, Utah.. Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine Research 39, 4, 549–555.Google Scholar
McCabe, G.J., Wolock, D.M., (2007). Warming may create substantial water supply shortages in the Colorado River basin. Geophysical Research Letters 34, L22708.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCabe, G.J., Betancourt, J.L., Hidalgo, H.G., (2007). Associations of decadal to multidecadal sea-surface temperature variability with upper Colorado River flow. Journal of the American Water Resources Association 43, 1, 184–192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meko, D.M., Woodhouse, C.A., (2005). Tree-ring footprint of joint hydrologic drought in Sacramento and Upper Colorado river basins, western USA. Journal of Hydrology 308, 196–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meko, D.M., Therrell, M.D., Baisan, C.H., Hughes, M.K., (2001). Sacramento River flow reconstructed to A.D. 869 from tree rings. Journal of the American Water Resources Association 37, 4, 1029–1040.Google Scholar
Meko, D.M., Woodhouse, C.A., Baisan, C.A., Knight, T., Lukas, J.L., Hughes, M.K., Salzer, M.W., (2007). Medieval drought in the upper Colorado River Basin. Geophysical Research Letters 34, L10705.Google Scholar
Michaelsen, J., (1987). Cross-validation in statistical climate forecast models. Journal of Climate and Applied Meteorology 26, 1589–1600.Google Scholar
Mitchell, V.L., (1976). The regionalization of climate in the Western United States. Journal of Applied Meteorology 15, 920–927.Google Scholar
Mock, C.J., (1996). Climatic controls and spatial variations of precipitation in the western United States. Journal of Climate 9, 1111–1125.Google Scholar
Percival, D.B., Constantine, W.L.B., (2006). Exact simulation of Gaussian time series from nonparametric spectral estimates with application to bootstrapping. Statistics and Computing 16, 1, 25–35.Google Scholar
Peterson, K.L., (1994). A warm and wet little climatic optimum and a cold and dry Little Ice Age in the southern Rocky Mountains, U.S.A.. Climatic Change 26, 243–269.Google Scholar
Seager, R., Graham, N., Herweijer, C., Gordon, A.L., Kushnir, Y., Cook, E., (2007). Blueprints for Medieval hydroclimate. Quaternary Science Reviews 26, 2322–2336.Google Scholar
Snee, R.D., (1977). Validation of regression models: methods and examples. Technometrics 19, 415–428.Google Scholar
Spangler, J.D., (2000). Radiocarbon dates, acquired wisdom, and the search for temporal order in the Uinta Basin. Madsen, D.B., Metcalf, M.D., Intermountain Archaeology. University of Utah Anthropological Papers No. 122. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, UT.48–99.Google Scholar
Stahle, D.W., Fye, F.K., Cook, E.R., Griffin, R.D., (2007). Tree-ring reconstructed megadroughts over North America since A.D. 1300. Climatic Change 83, 133–149.Google Scholar
Stine, S., (1994). Extreme and persistent drought in California and Patagonia during medieval time. Nature 269, 546–549.Google Scholar
Stokes, M.A., Smiley, T.L., (1968). An Introduction to Tree-Ring Dating. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Swetnam, T.W., (1993). Fire history and climate change in giant sequoia groves. Science 262, 885–889.Google Scholar
Taylor, G.H., Daly, C. and Gibson, W.P., (1995). Development of a model for use in estimating the spatial distribution of precipitation. Proceedings of the 9th Conference on Applied Climatology, Dallas TX , American Meteorological Society pp.92–93.Google Scholar
Timilsena, J., Piechota, T., Tootle, G., Singh, A., (2009). Associations of interdecadal/interannual climate variability and long-term Colorado River Basin streamflow. Journal of Hydrology 365, 289–301.Google Scholar
Wigley, T.M.L., Briffa, K.R., Jones, P.D., (1984). On the average value of correlated time series, with applications in dendroclimatology and hydrometeorology. Journal of Climate and Applied Meteorology 23, 201–213.Google Scholar
Woodhouse, C.A., (2003). A 431-yr reconstruction of western Colorado snowpack from tree-rings. Journal of Climate 16, 1551–1561.Google Scholar
Woodhouse, C.A., Gray, S.T., Meko, D.M., (2006). Updated streamflow reconstructions for the Upper Colorado River Basin. Water Resources Research 42, W05415.Google Scholar