Tree rings tell us much more than just a tree’s age. They also provide clues that help us understand how our environment has changed in the past, and provide insights into how key processes in atmosphere, biosphere and geological systems operate over long timescales.

1. GEOG5839
INTRODUCTION TO
DENDRO
CHRONOLOGY

3. 2012 Mar-May temperature anomaly h p://www.giss.nasa.gov/

4. QUESTION
Is it unusual for the world to be this warm?

5. Low reservoir
Source: Glen MacDonald

6. QUESTION
Is there enough water in the Colorado River
to satisfy the expected need?

7. Source: Howard Arno

8. QUESTION
When were these dwellings constructed
(and abandoned)
and why?

10. QUESTION
How does weather and climate affect
the risk and severity of forest fires?

11. Source: U.S. Coast Guard, Lt. Brendan Evans

12. QUESTION
How often do natural hazards like floods occur,
and what factors make them more or less likely?

13. “ Three li le words achingly familiar
on the Western farmer's tongue, rule life
in the dust bowl of the continent – if it rains.
Associated Press
”
April 15, 1935

15. “ There is nothing magical about
the last one hundred years.
Dr. Balaji Rajagopalan
University of Colorado
”

16. CLIMATE HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA
Younger Demise of Laurentide
Dryas Ice Sheet
20 16 12 8 4 0
THOUSANDS OF
YEARS AGO
Final Drainage
of Lake Agassiz
LAST GLACIAL MODERN
MAXIMUM OBSERVATIONS

18. Tree at Chancellorsville
Source: Andy Frasse o

19. Tree-ring display at elementary school
Source: Tom Swetnam

20. DENDROCHRONOLOGY IS
MUCH MORE
THAN JUST
COUNTING TREE RINGS.

21. “
The trees composing the forest rejoice and
lament with its successes and failures and
carry year by year something of its story in
their annual rings.”
A. E. Douglass
University of Arizona

22. Source: Baillie (1982)

24. Source: Lane Johnson

25. Source: Lane Johnson

27. 27
St.. George and Nielsen, The Holocene, 2003

28. Giant sequoia 3,266 years
Source: Julie Jordan Sco

29. Intermountain bristlecone pine 4,844 years
Source: Tom Harlan

30. The Seward Oak 330 years?
Source: Ralph Sievert

31. Eastern white cedar (in Minnesota) 560 years
Source: Danny Margoles

33. “ Tree-ring analysis is one of the most powerful tools
available for the study of environmental change
and the identification of fundamental relationships
”
between tree growth and climate.
Ed Cook and Neil Pederson
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

35. INTRODUCTION TO DENDROCHRONOLOGY

36. GEOG5839
MAJOR TOPICS

37. The science of dendrochronology uses information
encoded into the annual growth rings of trees to
address issues related to climate change, hazards,
ecology and natural history.

38. September 6
What are tree rings?

39. September 18
How does weather affect tree growth?
Source: Paul Schulte

40. September 20
The principle of cross-dating
h p://esp.cr.usgs.gov/data/atlas/li le/

41. The Longest Tree-Ring Record
In The Americas.
8,500 Years

42. October 23
The history of dendrochronology

44. October 18
Sampling strategies

45. October 16
Dendroarcheology

46. November 6
Dendroecology
Source: Whitney Crawford

47. November 8
Dendrogeomorphology
Source: Erica Bigio

48. GEOG5839
LABORATORY ACTIVITIES

52. Exercise
Tree anatomy
Source: Fritz Schweingruber

53. Exercise(s)
Cross-dating

54. Exercise
Signal processing

60. GEOG5839
ABOUT ME

66. GEOG5839
COURSE STRUCTURE

71. 25% In-class discussion
Laboratory exercises 30%
40% Project and final report
Final exercise 5%

73. GEOG3839
XT C L AS S
NE
Source: Fri s Schweingruber