A 480-year tree-ring width chronology from a Ponderosa Pine site at Elephant Rock in New Mexico, United States. The data provides annual-resolution proxy climate records from 450 to 30 years before present. This archived paleoclimatology study is maintained by NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information under the World Data Service.
Use Cases
- Reconstruct annual precipitation or drought indices for the southwestern US using the tree-ring width series as a proxy.
- Calibrate and validate regional climate model simulations for the last 500 years against the high-resolution tree-ring chronology.
- Analyze the frequency and severity of historical drought events by identifying narrow ring sequences in the width data.
- Study the growth response of Ponderosa Pine to past climatic stressors by examining inter-annual variability in ring widths.
Strengths
- 480-year continuous annual-resolution chronology from 450 to 30 BP.
- Data is archived and curated by the authoritative NOAA World Data Service for Paleoclimatology.
Limitations
- Single-site chronology from one tree species, limiting spatial representativeness.
- Data record ends 30 years BP, requiring integration with other datasets for more recent periods.
- Raw sample depth and replication statistics for the chronology are not provided in the input.
Provenance
- Source
- NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) World Data Service (WDS) for Paleoclimatology.
- Collection Method
- Tree-ring analysis (dendrochronology) of Ponderosa Pine (PIPO) samples.
- Time Range
- 450 to 30 calendar years before present (BP).
- Freshness
- null
- Geography
- Elephant Rock, New Mexico, United States of America.