Pekka Njd / Pekka Njd /

DENDROCHRONOLOGY HIGHLIGHTS

Mensa International Midnight Sun Meeting 7.-10.7.2011
Excursion Day 8.7.2011: Climate Lessons in Kellokas Visitor Centre,
Tunturintie 54, 95970 kslompolo, Finland

10:40-11:20




Mauri Timonen
The Finnish Forest Research Institute, Rovaniemi unit
Mauri Timonen
Metsntutkimuslaitos Skogsforskningsinstitutet Finnish Forest Research Institute www.metla.fi
Eugene A. Vaganov
Academician and Professor Eugene A. Vaganov, from
Krasnoyrask, is not only a highly appreciated world-famous
scientist but also a Wonderful Cartoonist. The cartoon, on the
right, gives a humorous introduction to step into the Scientific
World of Dendrochronology.
Those new in Dendrochronology (or Tree-Ring Science), some
words related to the activity of the cartoon. Sudden contact
with just a curious bear and a very enthuasted photographer,
nothing more to explain in that respect.
But what does a special tool, called increment borer, mean to
a climate researcher? In this case it is halfway on the way to
the pith of a trunk. Well, coring samples is a common way of
collecting dendrochronological research material for scientific
studies.
The borer is a hollow tube of 4-10 millimeters in diameter,
where the sampled core is forced. If successful, the borer hits
the pith and provides an year-exact sample to be saved and
analysed in laboratory. More here on the subject.
Professor Kari Mielikinen (on the right) and Senior
Researcher Mauri Timonen field working at a small Lake
Koierijrvi of Northern Finland in 1984.
To continue with some fun: maybe escaping the bear of the previous picture on this trees top might not be
a very good idea Well, June-July temperature greatly affects to the growth of Scots timberline pine in
Finnish Lapland. The temperature characteristic, good preservation of wood and easy geographical
accessibility among others - have made it possible to build very long tree-ring width calendars for
Northern Finland. The longest year-exact chronology of timberline Scots pine rates to 7645 years in 2011.
This 250 years old timberline pine, located on the top of the Levi
Mountain, is one representative of the millions natural climate stations
growing in Northern Finland. Pekka Mauno, a journalist working in
Lapin Kansa, the main newspaper in Northern Finland, demonstrates
the tiny size of the tree. Photo: Mauri Timonen 2003. Mauri Timonen
This young guy is very interested to see
through a lupe, how this 500-yr snag from
the Saariselk area (Northern Finlnad) was
growing e.g. in the 1600s. The lupe view on
the left tell about an European-wide climate
effects of the Peruvian Huaynaputina
volcano explosion in February of 1600. Tree
growth even in Northern Finland was about
in half of normal!

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This illustration of tree growth just tells how any tree grows annually. The basic components of annual growth are
diameter growth and height growth, which together define volume growth.
This sample, coded as UTS4639, is a cross-section of a Scots pine representative in the Utsjoki valley (Northern
Finland). It dates to 2369 2215 BC. The log was unearthed from the muddy bottom of a small pond at the base of Fjell
Ailigastunturi, located at the roadside of the Utsjoki-Nuorgam main road. Funny how nicely ancient and quartz time
encounter here!
The principles of Dendrochronology. See in more detail on Henri Grissino-Maiers The Ultimate Tree-Ring webpages
Sorry for a bit pumping presentation, but the aim of this show is to be both scientific and entertaining.

SOME QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED
IN OUR PROJECT 3436/METLA

Changes in climate after the last Ice Age
Can we regard the Medieval Warm Period only as a
Nordic curiosity?
Does the Sun have any affect on climate?
Divergence have the trees lost their ability to react to
climate change?
How can we benefit from the information of past
climate?
Watch dog is a nice looking WoodCreat.

No doubt: Water Hippo. If lucky, you may meet her in Lake llrijrvi!

Pulmankijrven viereinen pikku lampi
Mauri Timonen
There exists no living pines on the banks of this small lake beside Lake Pulmankijrvi, located at the Finnish pine
tree line. Its muddy bottom hides saw-timber sized logs that were growing some thousands of years ago!
Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) and birch (Betula
pubescens, Betula verrucosa) colonised Finnish
Lapland 9000 - 8000 years ago. Norway spruce (Picea
abies) arrived only 3000 years ago.

Climate during the so called Atlantic period 7000-
4000 years ago was several degrees warmer than
today.

Large-sized pines were growing in those times beyond
the present pine timberline (alpine and polar
timberline).

The oldest so far known pine megafossil in Finland
was found in Lake Iijrvi, north of Lake Inarijrvi. Its
oldest tree-ring dates to 5633 BC.
Mauri Timonen
A view to a small lake on the
way from Nkkl village to Lake
Pyrisjrvi.
These ancient pine remnants
have preserved in good
condition for thousands of
years. Their location is shown
in the upper picture.
Mauri Timonen
Mauri Timonen
This pine megafossil was extracted from the
muddy bottom of this lake, located at the
pine tree line close to lake Pyrisjrvi, in
Enonteki commune. These regions were
densely populated by pine forest 7000
3000 years ago.
The pine log on
the right, sampled
as cross-section
no 8 and coded as
Poyr8, dated to
2604-2437 BC.

See the whole slide story here!
Mauri Timonen
Enjoy more Dendro Arts here
Mauri Timonen
Mauri Timonen
Mauri Timonen A lake close to Kalmankaltio
We cut sample disks using a chain saw. Thousands of years old wood surface glitters at first bright yellow, but
oxidizes in 10-15 minutes copper brown. The logs are registered and turned back to water, where they preserve
well and can be relocated as needed.
Mauri Timonen
The adventure has to continue
If you like this, click on the
WoodCreats of Waters story.
Eugene A. Vaganov
Considering real life, thats what it is
frequently to a real Dendrochronologist!

Kuva kiekot on kertty yli 30 metsnrajaseudun jrvest (kartta). Tst
kiekkokasasta rakennetaan vuosilustokalenteri!
Mauri Timonen
Metlas (Finnish Forest Research Institute) first long Scots pine chronology was finished in 1994. The 1911-yr
chronology was built from 400 subfossil logs collected from 33 lakes. The younger part of the chronology was built
from snag cores sampled in the Saariselk (Riekkovaara) and Muotkaruoktu regions (100 samples). Living tree
material was sampled from ca. 800 cores collected in a project called National Tree-ring Index Service (VKIP) .
These areas and sites were investigated in the EU funded ADVANCE-10K Project.
Megafossil samples should sometimes be regarded as arts of nature!
A
B
C
D
E
Mauri Timonen
VAL0473
Finland tree,
Vallijrvi 1999
Snag, 1000 y
Muotkanruoktu
1999
Tarred stump piece
Muotkanruoktu
Kuntsavaara 1999
Vallijrvi 1999
R96A23
Lake Pitkjrvi,
Peltovuoma, Finnish
Lapland 1999
-2873
-2617
1122
942
Mauri Timonen
Tree-ring samples (cores, cross-sections) can be measured directly through a stereo microscope or from a video screen.

Mauri Timonen
Tauno Luosujrvi measuring a cross-section (2000)
Early wood (light cells) developes in June. Late wood (dark cells) develops in mid-June mid July
Beginning of annual growth
End of annual growth
Mauri Timonen
A new tree-ring research project called Variation in
Growth was started in 1992 at Metla. One of the
aims of the project was to build the institutes first
long pine chronology from material consisting of living
trees, snags, old house logs, stumps and megafossils.
As a result, a 1911 years long pine chronology was
published in 1998. The chronology has proved to be
useful in many purposes in the Finnish forest
research.

Reference: Mielikinen, K., Njd, P., Pesonen, E. &
Timonen, M. 1998. Puun muisti. Kasvun vaihtelu pivst
vuosituhanteen. Metsntutkimuslaitoksen tiedonantoja 748.
54 s. http://lustiag.pp.fi/Puun%20Muisti.pdf
Age distribution of the cross-dated samples in Metlas 1911-yr pine chronology.
METLAS 1911-YR PINE CHRONOLOGY
SOME CONCLUSIONS
Finnish chronologies of timberline Scots pine tell about more or less
cyclicly changing June-July mean temperatures.
In a 1000-yr time perspective, the growth variations of the 1900s do not
significantly differ from the previous centuries.
In comparison to the warm period of the early 1900s, at least ten equal
warm climatic periods have appeared. Correspondingly, cool periods
have followed the warm ones.
The June-July mean temperature that controls pine ring-width growth in
Northern Finland, has remainded quite ubchanged during the last 100
years.
Special attention is paid to cyclicity in our Finnish tree-ring chronologies.
Possible break-through would provide a tool for predicting future natural
climate.
According to Sirn (1961, 1996) regeneration of timberline forests in
Finnish Lapland is strongly correlated to favourable climatic conditions.
Based on his data of some well-known pine regeneration years and his
tree-ring index, he connected good seed years to maximum tree-ring
index peaks or periods.
Note that these interpretations are based on high and medium frequence
filtering on the data. Exposing longer climatic trends like Medieval Warm
Period and Little Ice Age needs low-frequence filtering.
Growth variation of Scots pine on the Finnish timberline
during the last Millennium


Professor Matti Eronen (in the middle) started to build the supra-long Finnish pine chronology in 1974 first collecting 66 samples for
radiocarbon dating. It took 25 years from him to finish a 7520-yr chronology. Here Eronen, Dr. Markus Lindholm (left) and the author of
this presentation introduce the chronology in the INQUA Congress in Reno, USA, in 2003. Abstract on page 80.
SOME DETAILS :
Ring width:
- range 0.3 1.5 mm, on the average 0.6 mm
-
Index
- Scale for tree-ring indices: 50-150.
- Minimum and maximum values (pointer years) indicate cooler and
warmer years (most likely abrupt changes in the June-July
temperatures).

Number of replications
- Number of replications vary considerably: range here 8 60
- Difficult periods to find samples: 4400 BC, 3200 BC,
2050 BC, 600 100 BC, 80 AD

EPS
- Still some weakly replicated periods, e.g. 4400 BC, 2050 BC,
600 BC, 300 BC and 100 BC (compare to Number of
Replications!)

RBAR
- Calculated in 21-yr windows)
- Correlation between series on the average : 0.4

StDev Ind
- Standard deviation of index 20 40 %.

StErr Ind
- Standard error of index 5 -10 %

Download:
Data of the figure (5520 BC 1997 AD) at http://lustiag.pp.fi/data/Advance/adv10sf1.exz
Updated data (5634 BC 2004 AD) at http://lustiag.pp.fi/data/Advance/adv7638.exz

Non-standardized ring-width averages (green line) do not fit well in dendroclimatic analyses. Averaged ring-width samples with
different biological growth rhytms, i.e. starting from juvenile increasing growth, reaching maximum growth and finally turning
to decreasing growth, cause false trends thus confusing climatic conclusions. These trends have to be removed from ring-widths
using a procedure called standardization. Stardardized values, or tree-ring indices, work much better, but still a lot of
researchers skills are needed to make the right conclusions.
Metlas 1911-yr tree-ring chronology

Exceptional years of growth (pointer years) usually are
hypothesized to be signs of extreme climatic conditions. That is,
however, not the case always, because any disturbance caused by
internal (endogenous-local) or external (exogenous-standwide)
events may be the real cause of the event.

Anyway, skilful data selection and data analysis, no doubt, expose
also the climatic signals from such kind of noisy data. The
enclosed graph is a good example showing how timberline Scots
pine in Northern Finland reacts to climatic extremes.

The left side of the graph shows the high-frequency variation of
Scots pine on the Finnish timberline. The pointer years presented
on the right side of the graph describe the cold (blue) and warm
(red) periods. We easily can observe, how warm and cold periods
repeat from one time to another. This graph is, however, does not
reveal the whole scale of climatic variations: longer (low-
frequency) periods do not appear in this kind of appraoch. Thus
we can not see e.g. Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age. We
need to use other kinds of tools like Age Banding and/or the
RCS method.

Tree-ring index Pointer years
Year
A Gap in the Bristlecone chronology.
See the article A Memory Bank for the Planet
Changes in the Finnish pine timberline after the last Ice Age

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The Santorini volcano eruption in the 1600s BC. appears in the Finnish pine chronology as a deep growth depression. According to Salzer
and Hughes years of ring-width minima can be matched with known volcanic eruptions or ice-core volcanic signals in 86% of cases. The
Finnish pine chronology might e.g. reflect the effects of the following volcanoes: Pinatubo in Philippines 3550 BC; Pele in the West
Indies 2440 BC; Hekla in Iceland 950 BC: Etna in Italy 122 BC: Rabaul in New Papua-Guinea 542 AD; Hekla 1104 AD and Huaynaputina in
Peru 1600 AD, an event that cooled the whole Euopean climate in 1601. Source: Siebert and Simkin.
A quite popular presentation of Holosenic climate show several warmer and cooler periods. Climate seems to
be of cyclic origin. But what is the driving force? The Sun is considered to be the source of this kind climatic
variation.
The Swedish study titled Tornetrsk tree-ring width and density ad 5002004 shows quite average climate in
Scandinavia at the moment.
Growth variation of Finnish timberline pine during 1750-2008 is based on two independent datasets. Blue line represents
the stands of the growth trend study and red line the tree-ring index sample plots. This extensive material shows that
timberline pine was growing the best rate in 1920-1940. The last 40 years have been quite average. Monthly average
temperature record of July, or June-July in Sodankyl, shows quite a similar pattern as the tree-ring index.
METLAS GROWTH TREND PROJECT (PRELIMINARY RESULTS)
NORTHERN FINLAND
Source of Finnish climatic data:
Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI)
Comparison of climate patterns in Northern Finland (blue color), Whole Finland (green) and Northern
hemisphere (red) indicate less climatic trends as moving towards the North. There seems to exist no longtime
trends in Finland, because the 1930s peaks at the level as the 2000s. Northern hemisphere shows a rising trend
as there is not any significant peak in the 1930s.
Why is the climate of Finnish Lapland so average? The main reason is a
phenomenon called the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) that varies
periodically causing exceptional weather in Europe and Northern Africa.
Active phase of NAO (high index) appears in Finland particularly in
wintertime as warm-winded but sometimes also as stormy westerlies.
Summertime is different: the same climatic pattern causes moist-cool
weather pattern.

The Gulf Stream, as a part of the Thermohaline Circulation system, brings
warm water to Northern Europe. As NAO is in its high phase, moist air is
distributed by the westerlies to Finland. NAO was exceptionally active in
the 1990s, which raised the mean temperature of the winter months by a
couple of degrees. Moisture accumulated at the same time as extra snow
so that there were in Finnish Ksivarsi even three times and in other
locations of Finnish Lapland twice as much as normally. Since then, NAO
has subsided in the 2000s.
Source of climate
data: CRU
Volcano activity may be identified as exceptionally narrow tree-rings
in Finnish timberline pines. This is caused by atmospheric ash that
prevents sun radiation reaching ground level. This phenomenon may
sometimes last even tens of years, especially in the case of multiple
explosions. The map (on the left) shows the global distribution of
volcano activity.
Volcano activity statistics: http://www.volcano.si.edu )

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http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/find_regions.cfm
The Finnish timberline pine chronology reflects the June-July temperature variations. As data smoothing (here
50 yr FFT smoothing) is applied, cyclic patterns appear in the chronology. The climate, indeed, seems to have
varied cyclicly for the whole over 7600-yr period. Check also this poster.
Wavelet analysis is a special tool for revealing cycles in datases. The red areas (lower figure) indicate the strongest
cyclicity. The y-axis scale show cycle lentgh. The non-significant data is excluded with diagonal lines. Climate seems to
vary on a constant basis. According to spectral analysis the most significant period lengths are appr. 38, 47, 55-57, 81-85
and 95 years. The Suns basic cycle is called Gleissbeg cycle. Its average length is 88.621 years.
Some projections based on the ca. 80-yr cyclicity found in the Finnish timberline pine chronology. The 2010s in Northern
Finland may be warmer than on the average, but thereafter a decades long cooler should take place. References:
Sirn_1961, Timonen 2010/Poster/Abstract (Page 247).
Mauri Timonen: telescope, Moon, Saturn, Jupiter + the Galilean 4 moons , northern lights and the Sun 1975. John Laborde : Comet West 9.3.1975
Mauri imonen
Sun and space based climate research has solved some meachanisms between Sun activity, cosmic rays and the upper
atmosphere of the Earth. A very interesting question the role of the oceans in storing and releasing sun energy. The
oceans were warming because of the very active Sun in 60-yr period of 1940-2000. Does this mean that the oceans will
warming climate with some delay ed period.
We still know quite a little about solar
activity. The further investigation has
progressed the more have come
evident that the Earth is a child of
the Sun.
Sunspot number is connected to the
intensity of solar energy production.
The about 11-year cycle of sunspots is
caused by variation in solar activity.
One of the key issues in climate
change research today is, how the
variations in the Sun's energy output
influence Earth climate. Researchers
have different views on the matter.
The observed 8495-yr cycle in the
Finnish timberline chronology has an
interesting connection to the 70100-
yr Gleissberg cycle. If the connection
is real, it allows climate forecasting
based on tree-rings!
We have prepared some tentative
climate forecasts. They are based on
the cycles of 8495 years and about
1000 years. Exciting to see in the
coming years, whether forecasting
based sun and tree-ring cyclicity
really works!
SOLAR ACTIVITY
Mauri Timonen
Some IPCC projections indicate ca. 1c/2F rise in the next 30 years. Interesting to see which direction climate is going to.
Abdussamatovs climate temperature
Forecast for 2005-2100
Dr. Habibullo Addussamatov released a climate forecast for based on the Suns diameter variation. Interesting to see
whether there will be a dramatic 1C/2F cooler period in global temperature in the next 30 years.
Cool Little Ice Age, warm 1930s and small warming in the 2000s indicate the June-August mean temperature model built
by Bntgen et al. (2011). Climate can develop this century the following ways: A: Rising trend by the IPCC projections
(red dotted line); B: Natural cyclic behaviour (yellow dotted line, e.g. Abdussamatovs climate projection) and C: Chaotic
behaviour, causing even a new ice age (C: blue dotted line, model hypothetic).
DIVE INTO THE DEPTHS OF THIS WEBSITE AND BECOME FAMILIAR
WITH THE SECRETS OF FINNISH TREE-RING SCIENCE!


Professor Matti Eronens ADVANCE10K-
project team, which included researchers
from Metla and the universities of Helsinki
and Joensuu, decided in 1998 to set up a
website for promoting use of the Finnish
supralong chronology of timberline pine.
The year-exact 7644-yr chronology, dating
back to 5634 BC, needed several projects
and 25 years to finish. In addition,
thousands of data and other files were
produced, which still are important in our
present projects.
The website was originally known as
FinTRLabs but later on, in 2006, it was
renamed to LUSTIA in honor of Metlas
Tree-Ring Research Development project
with the same name. Its net address is
www.lustia.fi or http://lustiag.pp.fi .
Although still arranging and archiving the
ADVANCE10K information, the Lustia
website has grown into the leading Finnish
information source of Dendrochronology.
Tree-ring people in more than 100
countries know the site and visit there for
different reasons.
The name Lustia is an acronym for the
Finnish words LustoTietoArkisto (Tree-Ring
Information Archive). We have launched a
set of new brand names for data and
information archiving: TrapThor, MeLTiH
and GKlik. We need these acronyms in our
object-oriented project for setting up a an
application called Virtual Forest of
Dendrochronology.

Best wishes, Mauri Timonen