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›› 2014, Vol. 37 ›› Issue (4): 676-683.

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Influence of different detrending methods on climate signals from tree-ring width chronologies in Hasi Mountain,northwestern China

JIA  Fei-fei,LU  Rui-jie,SHANG  Yuan,TIAN  Li-hui,CHENG  Yuan   

  1. (Key Laboratory of Environmental Change and Natural Disaster,Ministry of Education of China,Beijing Normal University,Beijing 100875,China)
  • Received:2013-09-11 Revised:2013-10-20 Online:2014-07-25

Abstract: Tree-ring width not only reflects inter-annual variation related to climate and associated water deficit information but also biological information. To extract climate signals,non-climatic information must be removed. A total of 114 Pinus tabulaeformis samples were collected from 55 trees at Hasi Mountain,Jingyuan County,Gansu Province northwestern China. Based on the tree-ring width data,the paper developed four ring-width chronologies using different detrending methods including regional curve,negative exponential curves,30-year and 67% of series length fixed smoothing splines. For the sake of convenience,the resulting chronologies were abbreviated as RCS,NEL,SP30 and SP67 chronologies,respectively. The results suggest that there are very consistent change trends among four chronologies,but amplitudes of ring-width fluctuation yield considerable differences. RCS and NEL chronologies have larger amplitudes than SP30 and SP67 during the period with notably lower tree growth or higher one. Two chronologies developed using smoothing splines have gentle changes,and the amplitude of fluctuation being gentler with the step length being shorter. All the four chronologies have peak correlation with precipitation in September of the previous year. In addition to many similarities,the chronologies demonstrate several discrepancies. RCS and NEL chronologies have stronger correlation with average temperature than other chronologies,which indicates they are capable of capturing more temperature signals. Compared with precipitation,temperature plays an important role in limiting the tree growth. The results from power spectral analysis show that the ability of the chronologies to preserve climate signals varies in different frequency domains,especially in the lower frequencies. Compared with SP30 and SP67 chronologies,the RCS and NEL chronologies reveal more low-frequency climate variability. However,the SP30 and SP67 chronologies can reflect more high frequency information. The negative exponential curve is a more suitable detrending method for Hasi Mountain Region.

Key words: Hasi Mountain, tree rings, detrending methods, chronology

CLC Number: 

  • P467