Regional climatic signals in Scots pine growth with insights into snow and soil associations

Abstract

We performedclimatic assessments of Scots pine growth variations in Finlandover recent decades by their tree-ring series andcomparing growth variations to those observedin meteorological records. Tree-ring indices showed non-significant growth trends over roughly the past four decades (1972-2007). The observedgrowth variability was explainedby connexions to the mid-summer (July) climate (temperature and, likely, cloudiness) in the north and to the spring (April) soil temperatures in the south. Tree growth was negatively associated with snow depth at the beginning of dormancy (in November, previous to the corresponding growth year) in the south and during the growing season start (May) in the north. Thus, these analyses emphasized the relevance of snow and soil data, which have usually been overlooked in studies of associations between climate and tree-ring changes.