A method to separate temperature and precipitation signals encoded in tree-ring widths for the western Tien Shan Mountains, northwest China

Abstract

Separating temperature and precipitation signals encoded in tree rings is a complicated issue. Here, we present a separation method by combining two tree-ring width chronologies of Schrenk's spruce (Picea schrenkiana) from the upper and lower timberlines in the western Tien Shan Mountains, northwest China. Correlation analyses show that both chronologies correlate positively with precipitation. However, temperature correlates positively with the chronology from the upper timberline, while negatively with the chronology from the lower timberline. This suggests that the two chronologies contain similar precipitation information but opposite temperature signals. In light of this, we calculated the average and difference of the two chronologies, and found that each of them has a much stronger correlation with precipitation or temperature alone. Finally, we reconstructed local precipitation and temperature variations over the past 201 years by using the average and difference of the two chronologies. The two reconstructions do not have a significant correlation, but they have significant positive and negative relationships on the high- and low-frequency band, respectively.