Global assessment of relationships between climate and tree growth
© 2020 The Authors. Global Change Biology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
| Publié dans: | Global change biology. - 1999. - 26(2020), 6 vom: 02. Juni, Seite 3212-3220 |
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| Auteur principal: | |
| Autres auteurs: | , , , , , , , , , , |
| Format: | Article en ligne |
| Langue: | English |
| Publié: |
2020
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| Accès à la collection: | Global change biology |
| Sujets: | Journal Article climate reconstruction dendroclimatology model calibration non-stationarity proxy calibration tree-rings Carbon 7440-44-0 |
| Résumé: | © 2020 The Authors. Global Change Biology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Tree-ring records provide global high-resolution information on tree-species responses to global change, forest carbon and water dynamics, and past climate variability and extremes. The underlying assumption is a stationary (time-stable), quasi-linear relationship between tree growth and environment, which however conflicts with basic ecological and evolutionary theory. Indeed, our global assessment of the relevant tree-ring literature demonstrates non-stationarity in the majority of tested cases, not limited to specific proxies, environmental parameters, regions or species. Non-stationarity likely represents the general nature of the relationship between tree-growth proxies and environment. Studies assuming stationarity however score two times more citations influencing other fields of science and the science-policy interface. To reconcile ecological reality with the application of tree-ring proxies for climate or environmental estimates, we provide a clarification of the stationarity concept, propose a simple confidence framework for the re-evaluation of existing studies and recommend the use of a new statistical tool to detect non-stationarity in tree-ring proxies. Our contribution is meant to stimulate and facilitate discussion in light of our results to help increase confidence in tree-ring-based climate and environmental estimates for science, the public and policymakers |
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| Description: | Date Completed 15.09.2020 Date Revised 15.09.2020 published: Print-Electronic Citation Status MEDLINE |
| ISSN: | 1365-2486 |
| DOI: | 10.1111/gcb.15057 |