Old growth forests in eastern Canada show that the climate started changing almost 100 years ago.

Old growth forests in eastern Canada show that the climate started changing almost 100 years ago.

Alexandre Pace

The Conversation

April 2025

 

The effects of climate change are complex, especially on the water cycle.  As we seek to better understand human-driven climate changes, long-term baselines for environmental data are essential.

However, records of past environmental conditions are too short to give us a robust understanding of how these systems have changed over time.  One solution is to look at natural archives.

There are many natural processes that leave behind records of past environmental conditions, including tree rings.

Trees form a ring of wood every year, and the width of that ring can have a significant relationship with climate.  We can then create a model based on the time period for which there is both recorded climate data and tree-ring widths.  That model can be applied to the rings that formed before climate records began to reconstruct past conditions.

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[Who knew there were small 500-year-old cedar trees on Canada’s east coast?  Ed.]

 

Link to | Old growth forests in eastern Canada show that the climate started changing almost 100 years ago.

 

[No-one should be surprised that climate change was having effects on biota a century ago.  Ed.]