Climate Change: Different Tree Ring And Oxygen Isotope Data Are A Good Thing
Monday, July 2, 2012 - 17:30
in Earth & Climate
If you want to understand the larger spatial patterns and timing of drought in the arid and semiarid areas of the American West, you will need to look at tree ring and oxygen isotope data.Estimates of past precipitation are made from proxies like tree rings, which can record amounts of precipitation and temperature. But tree rings are better at recording what happens during the spring and summer, when the tree is growing, than in the winter when the tree is not. To people outside science, the fact that they do not provide the same information on past precipitation is a concern, but the differing results are a good thing to geologists. read more