Published in

IOP Publishing, Environmental Research Letters, 7(11), p. 074021, 2016

DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/11/7/074021

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Diverse growth trends and climate responses across Eurasia’s boreal forest

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Postprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Published version: archiving allowed
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

The area covered by boreal forests accounts for ∼16%of the global and 22% of theNorthern Hemisphere landmass. Changes in the productivity and functioning of this circumpolar biome not only have strong effects on species composition and diversity at regional to larger scales, but also on the Earth’s carbon cycle. Although temporal inconsistency in the response of tree growth to temperature has been reported from some locations at the higher northern latitudes, a systematic dendroecological network assessment is stillmissing formost of the boreal zone.Here, we analyze the geographical patterns of changes in summer temperature and precipitation across northern Eurasia>60 °Nsince 1951 AD, aswell as the growth trends and climate responses of 445 Pinus, Larix and Picea ring width chronologies in the same area and period. In contrast to widespread summer warming, fluctuations in precipitation and tree growth are spatially more diverse and overall less distinct. Although the influence of summer temperature on ring formation is increasing with latitude and distinctmoisture effects are restricted to a fewsouthern locations, growth sensitivity to June–July temperature variability is only significant at 16.6% of all sites (p