Regional coherency of boreal forest growth defines Arctic driftwood provenancing ...

• Main Authors: Myglan, Vladimir S., Churakova Sidorova, Olga, Esper, Jan, Eggertsson, Ólafur, Düthorn, Elisabeth, Moiseev, Pavel, Agafonov, Leonid, Schweingruber, Fritz, Reinig, Frederick, Kirdyanov, Alexander V., Hellmann, Lena, Solomina, Olga, Tegel, Willy, Knorre, Anastasia A., Nikolaev, Anatoly N., Büntgen, Ulf
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2016
• Subjects: 550 Earth sciences & geology; 500 Science; Arctic; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.7892/boris.93565; http://boris.unibe.ch/93565/

Arctic driftwood represents a unique proxy archive at the interface of marine and terrestrial environments. Combined wood anatomical and dendrochronological analyses have been used to detect the origin of driftwood and may allow past timber floating activities, as well as past sea ice and ocean current dynamics to be reconstructed. However, the success of driftwood provenancing studies depends on the length, number, and quality of circumpolar boreal reference chronologies. Here, we introduce a Eurasian-wide high-latitude network of 286 ring width chronologies from the International Tree Ring Data Bank (ITRDB) and 160 additional sites comprising the three main boreal conifers Pinus, Larix, and Picea. We assess the correlation structure within the network to identify growth patterns in the catchment areas of large Eurasian rivers, the main driftwood deliverers. The occurrence of common growth patterns between and differing patterns within catchments indicates the importance of biogeographic zones for ring ...