Trees, Climate, and History: What tree rings can tell us about European history, its climatic drivers, and how it is linked to the Southwest

In climate change research, tree ring data can be used to reconstruct regional- to global-scale climate variability, but also to investigate the atmospheric circulation patterns driving this variability.  Furthermore, tree ring records provide an important tool to quantify the impacts of climatic variability and change on terrestrial ecosystem dynamics. In this talk, I will present a millennium-long reconstruction of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), the dominant atmospheric circulation pattern for European climate.  I will explain how the NAO was a driver for Medieval climate and history in Europe and how it fits in a global model for the Medieval Climate Anomaly.  Finally, I will present a tree-ring based fire history for the Western U.S. that confirms this model.

Dr. Trouet writes:
In my opinion, the largest challenges and potential for dendrochronology to advance paleoclimatological research on a policy-relevant level include (1) decreasing uncertainty in large-scale temperature and regional hydroclimate reconstructions, (2) developing more high-resolution climate reconstructions for the Southern Hemisphere and for tropical regions, and (3) reconstructing dynamical climate patterns and their interaction with ecosystems. I have collaborated in various projects that have focused on the first aspect, but my personal research interests have mainly focused on the latter two topics. Some specific projects I am involved in include the development of a tree-ring network in the miombo woodland of southern Africa, fire-climate interactions in northern California, and the reconstruction of atmospheric circulation patterns over the Balkan region.

After obtaining my master's in Bio-engineering (1999) and PhD in applied biological sciences (2004) in Belgium, I worked in the Vegetation Dynamics Lab in the department of geography at Pennsylvania State University. Afterwards, I moved back to Europe to work as a research scientist in the Dendrosciences Unit of the Swiss Federal Research Institute for Forest, Snow, and Landscape. I started working in the UA Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research in January 2011.