NOAA's Paleoclimatology archive provides a tree-ring chronology from the Hell's Half Acre site in California. The data covers a 483-year period from 453 to -30 calendar years before present. This dataset was archived by the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information.
Use Cases
- Reconstruct past climate variables like temperature or precipitation using tree-ring width measurements.
- Calibrate radiocarbon dating or other chronological models with the dated tree-ring series.
- Analyze growth anomalies in the ring data to identify historical drought or fire events.
- Compare this site's chronology with other ITRDB records to study regional climate patterns.
Strengths
- Data spans a 483-year period, providing a multi-century climate record.
- Part of the authoritative International Tree-Ring Data Bank (ITRDB) collection.
Limitations
- Temporal coverage ends at -30 BP, limiting analysis of the most recent centuries.
- Data is from a single site (Hell's Half Acre), reducing regional representativeness.
- The dataset was last updated in 1980, potentially lacking modern methodological refinements.
Provenance
- Source
- NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) World Data Service for Paleoclimatology.
- Collection Method
- Tree ring data collection and analysis (dendrochronology).
- Time Range
- 453 to -30 calendar years before present (BP).
- Freshness
- null
- Geography
- Hell's Half Acre, California, United States.