Oxygen Isotopes in Tree Rings from Greenland: A New Proxy of NAO

We present the first Greenlandic tree ring oxygen isotope record (δ 18 O GTR ), derived from four birch trees collected from the Qinguadalen Valley in southwestern Greenland in 1999. Our δ 18 O record spans from 1950–1999 and is significantly and positively correlated with winter ice core δ 18 O fro...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Atmosphere
Main Authors: Chenxi Xu, Brendan M. Buckley, Shih-Yu Simon Wang, Wenling An, Zhen Li, Takeshi Nakatsuka, Zhengtang Guo
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2020
Subjects:
tree ring δ 18 O
ice core δ 18 O
greenland
North Atlantic Oscillation
Meteorology. Climatology
QC851-999
Greenland
greenlandic
ice core
North Atlantic
North Atlantic oscillation
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12010039
https://doaj.org/article/1188a3a5719f461b9b032e0fe6dd5073
Description
Summary:We present the first Greenlandic tree ring oxygen isotope record (δ 18 O GTR ), derived from four birch trees collected from the Qinguadalen Valley in southwestern Greenland in 1999. Our δ 18 O record spans from 1950–1999 and is significantly and positively correlated with winter ice core δ 18 O from southern Greenland. δ 18 O GTR records are positively correlated with southwestern Greenland January–August mean temperatures. North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) reconstructions have been developed from a variety of proxies, but never with Greenlandic tree rings, and our δ 18 O GTR record is significantly correlated with NAO (r = −0.64), and spatial correlations with sea-level pressure indicate a classic NAO pressure seesaw pattern. These results may facilitate a longer NAO reconstruction based on long time series of tree ring δ 18 O records from Greenland, provided that subfossil wood can be found in areas vacated by melting glaciers.

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