Late summer temperature variability for the Southern Rocky Mountains (USA) since 1735 CE: applying blue light intensity to low-latitude Picea engelmannii Parry ex Engelm

Karen J. Heeter (), Grant L. Harley, Justin T. Maxwell, James H. McGee and Trevis J. Matheus
Additional contact information
Karen J. Heeter: University of Idaho
Grant L. Harley: University of Idaho
Justin T. Maxwell: Indiana University
James H. McGee: University of Idaho
Trevis J. Matheus: California State University, Fullerton

Climatic Change, 2020, vol. 162, issue 2, No 45, 965-988

Abstract: Abstract Our study examines the application of using blue intensity (BI) methods to develop a late summer maximum temperature (Tmax) reconstruction for the Southern Rocky Mountains—a mid-latitude (i.e., 36° N), arid region in North America. We reconstruct August–September (AS) Tmax for the period 1735–2015 CE using a composite latewood BI (LWB) Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmannii Parry ex Engelm.) chronology from multiple sites across the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in Northern New Mexico, USA. This study presents the first BI-derived temperature reconstruction for the lower mid-latitudes (30–45° N) of North America. We compare the climate response of multiple tree-ring parameters: LWB, earlywood BI (EWB), ∆BI (earlywood BI minus latewood BI), ring width (RW), and maximum latewood density (MXD). Of all parameters, the site-composite LWB and ∆BI chronologies show the strongest correlations with AS Tmax. Reconstructed AS Tmax demonstrates fluctuating warm and cool periods during the latter portion of the Little Ice Age (ca. 1730–1850) and pronounced warming through the early to mid-twentieth century (ca. 1920–1950s). The reconstruction also documents substantial warming over the last decade, the trend of which appears to be anomalous within the context of the past ca. 280 years. We highlight the potential for BI methods to be successfully used at high-elevation, mid-latitude locations where temperature proxy datasets are scarce or non-existent. As many places across the mid-latitudes lack contiguous, temporally resolved, decadal-scale paleotemperature proxies, we suggest here that BI methods can be effective at improving the spatial gaps in the Northern Hemisphere temperature proxy network.

Keywords: Blue intensity; North American Southwest; Paleoclimatology; Climate reconstruction; Dendrochronology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10584-020-02772-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:climat:v:162:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s10584-020-02772-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10584

DOI: 10.1007/s10584-020-02772-9

Access Statistics for this article

Climatic Change is currently edited by M. Oppenheimer and G. Yohe

More articles in Climatic Change from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().