Tasmanian Tree Ring Chronology From 402 BC

Tree ring width measurements from Tasmania, Australia, provide a 427-year climate proxy record spanning from 402 to 25 years before present. The dataset is archived by NOAA's World Data Service for Paleoclimatology as part of their paleoclimate studies collection. The original data collection and publication date is recorded as 1975.

Use Cases

• Calibrating Southern Hemisphere climate models by correlating tree_ring_width measurements with known temperature or precipitation records.
• Reconstructing past drought frequency in Tasmania by analyzing patterns in the annual tree_ring chronology.
• Studying ecological responses to volcanic events by identifying marker years of suppressed growth within the time-series.
• Comparing this ITRDB AUSL015 chronology with other Tasmanian proxies to validate regional climate reconstructions.

Strengths

• Covers a 427-year time period (402 to 25 BP), providing a multi-century climate record.
• Part of the authoritative International Tree-Ring Data Bank (ITRDB) collection curated by NOAA NCEI.
• Geographically specific to Tasmania, Australia, filling a data point for the Southern Hemisphere.

Limitations

• Temporal coverage ends at 25 BP, lacking modern instrumental overlap for recent calibration.
• The dataset's last update was in 1975, indicating potentially outdated metadata or collection methods.
• Unknown sample size (number of tree cores) and site replication limits statistical confidence.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), World Data Service for Paleoclimatology.

Collection Method

Tree ring core samples analyzed to create a width chronology.

Time Range

402 to 25 calendar years before present (BP).

Freshness

Last updated in 1975; static archival record.

Geography

Tasmania, Australia.