The European Isotope Network ISONET: first results

• Main Authors: Treydte, K., Schleser, G.H., Esper, J., Andreu, L., Bednarz, Z., Berninger, F., Bottger, T., D'Allessandro, C.D., Ethien, N., Filot, M., Frank, D., Grabner, M., Gutierrez, E., Haupt, M., Helle, G., Jungner, H., Kalela-Brundin, M., Leuenberger, M., Loader, N.J., Masson-Delmotte, V., Pazdur, A., Planells, O., Pukienė, Rūtilė, Reynolds-Henne, C.E., Rinne, K.T., Saurer, M., Sonninen, E., Stievenard, M., Switsur, V.R., Szczepanek, M., Todaro, L., Waterhouse, J.S., Weigl, M., Wimmer, R.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Lithuanian; English
• Published: 2005
• Subjects: Tree ring; Isotopes; Climate change; info:eu-repo/classification/udc/504; Fennoscandia
• Online Access: http://vdu.lvb.lt/VDU:ELABAPDB4457124&prefLang=en_US

Within the EU-Project ISONET (co-ordinator: G. Schleser, http//www.isonet-online.de), 13 partner institutions collaborate to develop the first large-scale network of stable isotopes (C, O and H), integrating 25 European tree sites reaching from the Iberian Peninsula to Fennoscandia. Key species are oak and pine. The sampling design considers not only ecologically “extreme” sites, with mostly a single climate factor dominating tree growth, as supportive for ring width and wood density analyses (Bräuning & Mantwill 2005; Briffa et al. 2001, 2002; Frank & Esper 2005a, b), but also temperate regions with diffuse climate signals recorded in the ‘traditional’ tree ring parameters. Within the project we aim to estimate temperature, humidity and precipitation variations with annual resolution, to reconstruct local to European scale climate variability over the last 400 years. Climate variability is addressed on three timescales, namely decade-century, interannual and intra-annual. This strategy allows understanding of both, high frequency (high resolution exploration of seasonality signals, and extreme events) and longer-term trends (source water/air mass dominance, baseline variability) in site specific and synoptic climate across Europe. Here we present results from initial network analyses considering first data of carbon (δ13C) and oxygen (δ18O) isotopes, to evaluate (a) common patterns in these networks and (b) their potential for detailed climate reconstruction beyond the information commonly achieved from ring width and density analyses.