SYNOPTIC
DENDROCLIMATOLOGY

GEOS/WSM 595e Dendrochronology Colloquium
Fall 2004

Direct to NCAR/NCEP Links  Climate & Weather Data Links      Other Useful Tools       Tree Ring Basics & Crossdating

Week Date Topic Readings:
(to be prepared for the date listed)

Comments, Resources &
Accompanying Hands-On Activities:
1 Tue Mar 2 Tree Growth, Climate, & Atmospheric Circulation

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For those needing more dendro background, see the LTRR's tree-ring & crossdating tutorials:  Tree Ring Basics  &  Try Crossdating Online 

Shaskin, Fritts & Down's TREERING 3.0 Process Model of cambial growth    https://www.ltrr.arizona.edu/webhome/hal/halmodel.html
Thu Mar 4 Synoptic Climatology & Dendroclimatology Harman, Jay R. and Winkler, J.A., (1991) Synoptic climatology: themes, applications, and prospects.  Physical Geography 12:220-230

Yarnal, Brent (1993)  Synoptic Climatology in Environmental Analysis, A Primer.  London, Bellhaven Press. Preface & Chapter 1 "Introduction to synoptic climatology"  (pp. xii -19)

Hirschboeck, KK. Ni, Fenbiao, Wood, M.L. and Woodhouse, C.A. (1996)  Synoptic dendroclimatology:  overview and outlook in Dean, J.S., Meko. D.M. and Swetnam, T.W., eds. Tree Rings, Environment, and Humanity:   Radiocarbon, pp. 205-223.

 

 
2 Tue Mar 9 Pioneers and Principal Components LaMarche, V.C., Jr. and H.C. Fritts (1971) Anomaly patterns of climate over the western United States, 1700-1930, derived from principal component analysis of tree-ring data.  Monthly Weather Review, v 99, n 2: 138-142.

Fritts, H.C., Blasing, T.J., Hayden, B.P, and Kutzbach, J.E. (1971).  Multivariate techniques for specifying tree-growth and climate relationships and for reconstructing anomalies of paleoclimate. J of Applied Meteorology 10: 845-864.

 Some useful websites & references for a quick overview of principal components analysis:

http://149.170.199.144/multivar/pca.htm http://www.statsoftinc.com/textbook/stfacan.html
http://www.okstate.edu/artsci/botany/ordinate/PCA.htm

Remote Sensing perspective: http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/Sect1/Sect1_14.html
Thu Mar 11 Pioneers and Principal Components (cont.) Fritts, H.C. (1991) Reconstructing Large-Scale Climatic Patterns from Tree-Ring Data - A Diagnostic Analysis  (selected section)

Optional -- to explore Atmospheric Sciences perspective on Principal Components analysis (EOF analysis) see:

H. Bjornsson and S. A. Venegas.  1997.  A Manual for EOF and SVD Analyses of Climatic Data, Feb. 1997  (pdf)

J.D. Horel.  1984.  Complex principal component analysis: theory and examples.  Journal of Climate and Applied Meteorology , vol. 23,no. 12 , pp.  1660-73 , Dec. 1984. (pdf)

 Hands on activity:  Check out Hal Fritts' DIFFMAP website

(NOTE: - DIFFMAP, the display program, is a DOS program -- if you've never tried to run one before, check it out to gain an understanding of what was "cutting edge" computer display in the 1980s. We owe a great deal to the pioneers who worked in this mode!)

Data files from Fritts' 1991 work are available at:  NOAA World Data Center for Paleoclimatology site:

 
Large Scale North American Temperature and Precipitation reconstructions and Description, 400 Years, Fritts 1991.

 
Spring Break Mar 13-21      
3 Tue Mar 23 Index-based Relationships

meet in Tree-Ring West Classroom,( rm 20 Math Annex)

 Yarnal, Brent (1993) Manual Classification chapter  (background reading on manual classification)

Villalba, R. (1990)  Latitude of the surface high-pressure belt over western South America during the last 500 years as inferred from tree-ring analysis. In Rabassa, J., eds., Quaternary of South America and Antarctic Peninsula. Rotterdam, A.A. Balkema Publishers: 273-303.

Biondi, F, A. Gershunov, and D.R. Cayan. (2001) North Pacific decadal climate variability since AD 1661. Journal of Climate (Letters) 14: 5-10

 See the following webpages from the NOAA World Data Center for Paleoclimatology site

Pacific Decadal Oscillation, 330 Years, Biondi et al. 2001.
Niño 3 Index, 575 Years, Cook unpublished.
Niño 3 Index and Description, 330 Years, Mann et al. 2000.
El Niño Events, 500 Years, Quinn and Neal 1983.
Southern Oscillation Index, 270 Years, Stahle et al. 1998.
Arctic Oscillation Warm Season SAT and SLP Indices, 325 Years, D'Arrigo et al. 2003.
 
Thu Mar 25 Index-based Relationships (cont.) no formal class -- work on assignment for 3/30 North Atlantic Oscillation Index, 600 Years, Cook et al. 2002.
North Atlantic Oscillation Index, 280 Years, Cook et al. 1998.
North Atlantic Oscillation Index, 550 Years, Glueck and Stockton 2001.
North Atlantic Oscillation Index, 500 Years, Luterbacher et al. 2002.
North Atlantic Oscillation Index, Southern Oscillation Index, 1000 Years, Jones et al. 2001.
Eastern North Atlantic-European Sea Level Pressure Reconstruction, 500 Years, Luterbacher et al. 2002.
Increase in the Asian SW Monsoon During the Past Four Centuries, 400 Years, Anderson et al. 2002.
4 Tue Mar 30 Event/Weather-Based Relationships

meet in Tree-Ring West Classroom,( rm 20 Math Annex)

 Cook, E.R., D'Arrigo, R.D. and Mann, M.E. (2002) A well-verified, multiproxy reconstruction of the Winter North Atlantic Oscillation Index since A.D. 1400. Journal of Climate 15: 1754-1764.

Garfin, G.M. (1998). Relationships between winter atmospheric circulation patterns and extreme tree growth anomalies in the Sierra Nevada. International Journal of Climatology 18: 725-740.

Work on your assignment in pairs as discussed in class 3/23.

Here's the direct link to the International Tree-Ring Databank (ITRDB):
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/treering.html

 
Thu Apr 1 Event/Weather-Based Relationships meet in Tree-Ring West Classroom,( rm 20 Math Annex) Briffa, K.R. et al.. (2002). Tree-ring width and density data around the Northern Hemisphere: Part 2, spatio-temporal variability and associated climate patterns. The Holocene 12(6): 759-789.  

Also look at: Briffa et al. (2002) (Part 1) Local and regional climate signals

Woodhouse C.A. and Meko.,D.M. (1997). Number of winter precipitation days reconstructed from Southwestern tree rings. Journal of Climate 10:2663-2669.

 Ela will lead the discussion on (long!) Briffa Part 2 paper.

Everyone should look over Briffa et al. Part 1 for the Part 2 context.

 

Jen will lead the discussion on the (short!)Woodhouse & Meko paper.
  Tue Apr 6 no class

Attend Meeting on:  Tree Rings and Climate: Sharpening the Focus April 6 – 9, 2004

Marriott University Park Hotel, Tucson
Thu Apr 8 no class
5 Tue Apr 13 Circulation-Map-Based Relationships
 meet in Tree-Ring West Classroom,( rm 20 Math Annex)		 Reading for today: Climate Prediction Center's Teleconnection Pages.  Read the INTRODUCTION:  http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/teledoc/teleintro.html  and also read the information on ALL links on this page to familiarize yourself with the indices and other related sites The Reanalysis Correlations website:
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/Correlations/  is now up and running again -- so for class Tuesday, please bring your results of the tree-ring series/circulation correlations that you started before the site went down. In your analysis, be creative, try out different months, seasons  and  variables to thoroughly explore the associations between the tree-ring series and the circulation.. Then produce some composite maps of high & low tree-ring series years --and average years -- to see how they compare with the correlation maps.
Tue Apr 15 Circulation-Map-Based Relationships (cont.)  Barnston and Livezey  (1987)  Classification, seasonality and persistence of low-frequency atmospheric circulation patterns. Mon. Wea. Rev., 115, 1083-1126.  
Final TBA