Historical Climate Studies Through Trees - Link

[Sgian Dubh]

I came across the article linked to below in The New York Times. It discusses the work of scientists who study trees for a historical record of the world's climate. There are links within the article to additional interesting stuff. I admit this whole 'tree thing' is something of special interest to me, but I suspect other visitors here may find the topic of interest. Slainte.

Chronicles of the Rings: What they Tell Us I suggest right clicking on the link and selecting the option to open in a new window or new tab to retain easy access to this forum - well, that's how I work it in IE11, my preferred browser.

 

[Droogs]

nice find richard

 

[Sgian Dubh]

nice find richard

To be honest, it was a Lost Art Press blog post that alerted me to it.

One of the points that struck me was discussion of Europe's oldest trees. A source unrelated to the NYT article reckons a spruce in Sweden is something like 9,500 years old, far older than any of the numbers cited in the article, but this spruce is a tree that keeps producing a new trunk or trunks. Then there's the Fortingall yew in Perthshire, reckoned to be somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000 years old. Neither of these latter two examples have what would be considered extant complete or whole trunks that have grown continuously from the original shoot, the pith, all the way out to the bark. The Fortingall yew, for example, is now naught but a large broken ring circumference of heartwood, sapwood, cambium and bark, plus branches and leaves, etc - almost akin now to series of smaller trees living close to each other. Seen from a distance it looks like a normal tree sticking above the protective wall and gate that encircles what remains of the original trunk - you may have seen a couple of snaps of this tree in Cut & Dried, pages 14 and 15.

Perhaps the scientists in the report dismiss these as contenders for the oldest European trees because they can't now take a core sample from bark to pith in order to count the number of rings. That last is just speculation on my part, and I could be all wet with it too, ha, ha. Slainte.

 

[Stanleymonkey]

Really interesting article - thanks for sharing.