Authors: Susan E TolwinskiWard Michael N Evans Malcolm K Hughes Kevin J Anchukaitis
Publish Date: 2010/11/26
Volume: 36, Issue: 11-12, Pages: 2419-2439
Abstract
We present a simple efficient processbased forward model of treering growth called Vaganov–ShashkinLite VSLite that requires as inputs only latitude and monthly temperature and precipitation Simulations of six bristlecone pine ringwidth chronologies demonstrate the interpretability of model output as an accurate representation of the climatic controls on growth Ensemble simulations by VSLite of two networks of North American ringwidth chronologies correlate with observations at higher significance levels on average than simulations formed by regression of ring width on the principal components of the same monthly climate data VSLite retains more skill outside of calibration intervals than does the principal components regression approach It captures the dominant low and highfrequency spatiotemporal ringwidth signals in the network with an inhomogeneous multivariate relationship to climate Because continuous meteorological data are most widely available at monthly temporal resolution our model extends the set of sites at which forwardmodeling studies are possible Other potential uses of VSLite include generation of synthetic ringwidth series for pseudoproxy studies as a data level model in data assimilationbased climate reconstructions and for bias estimation in actual ringwidth index seriesWe thank Kurt Kipfmueller and Matt Salzer for providing data for the 5N network the same two authors and Andy Bunn for sharing the bristlecone pine chronologies contributors to the International Tree Ring Data Bank of the World Data Center for Paleoclimatology which was the source for the M08 network We thank Connie Woodhouse for sharing her insights into regional climatic patterns captured by the 5N network and Brooke Rabe for her input on writing statistical code Thanks to the PRISM Climate Group at Oregon State University http//wwwprismclimateorg for making their product publicly available and to Benno Blumenthal for making the gridded PRISM product available on the IRI/LDEO Data Catalog http//iridlldeocolumbiaedu/ We are grateful to Martin Tingley and Joel Guiot for their thorough comments and feedback which greatly improved the structure of the paper Support for this work was provided by NSF/CMG grant 0724802 NOAA/CPO grant NA060AR4310115 NOAA grant NA07OAR4310060 and NOAA grant NA07OAR4310424
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