Eronen et al., Climate reconstructions from tree rings in northern Fennoscandia DISCUSSION PAPERS Summary of the strengths and weaknesses of the millennial tree-ring archive

• Main Authors: Of Fennoscandian Forest-limit Scots Pine, Matti Eronen, Markus Lindholm, Samuli Helama, Jouko Meriläinen, Mauri Timonen
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Kola Peninsula; Norway; Torneträsk; Fennoscandia; kola peninsula; Northern Sweden; Tundra
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.567.9102; http://lustiag.pp.fi/7638_weaknesses.pdf

Geographic distribution of the archive Tree-ring samples of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) were collected from living trees, dead standing logs, old buildings, and subfossil wood from small lakes (Eronen et al. submitted), selected dataset containing at present 1081 tree-ring series in all. The latter archive is the major source of samples. The area is situated between 68 ° and 70 ° N, 20 ° and 30 ° E, located in the northern part of the boreal forest belt in Fennoscandia, between the Swedish Scandes and the Kola Peninsula (Eronen et al. submitted). The forest limit region refers to the transition zone of relatively open canopy pine forests, between treeless tundra in the North and mixed Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karsten) and pine forests in the South. Northern Sweden at similar latitudes, Lake Torneträsk area, is a source of Scots pine tree-ring chronology almost equal in length (Grudd et al. submitted). However, this paper is focused on the Finnish tree-line chronology. Geographic distribution of the archive is limited by the necessity (uniformitarian assumption) of having uniform growth responses and growth patterns in the data. Homogeneity of tree-ring data from the region have been demonstrated by comparison of chronologies built from standing (living) trees (Lindholm 1996). Highly consistent tree-ring chronologies may be built from diverse sites as well as from various age-classes of trees (Lindholm et al. 2000; Lindholm et al. submitted).