Application of the Minimum Blue-Intensity Technique To A Southern-Hemisphere Conifer

• Autores: Matthew Brookhouse, Rochelle Graham
• Localización: Tree-ring research, ISSN 1536-1098, Vol. 72, nº. 2, 2016, págs. 103-107
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Resumen

  • Minimum blue-intensity (BI) appears to be a viable source of proxy-temperature data, but is yet to be applied to a Southern-Hemisphere species. Here, we apply the BI technique to Podocarpus lawrencei, a conifer endemic to the Australian Alps. We develop sample-preparation protocols and examine the climate sensitivity of resulting tree-ring width (TRW) and BI chronologies. We found that extractable resins were removed from P. lawrencei samples after 28 hours of Soxhlet extraction and a highly-significant negative correlation (r = -0.79, p<0.0001) exists between the resulting BI chronology and growing season (August?April) temperature maxima. The climate sensitivity of our BI data, combined with an apparent teleconnection with a previously-reported dataset, suggests that an unparalleled opportunity exists to develop a powerful proxy for growing-season temperatures in southeast Australia.