Seasonal Reconstruction of Summer Precipitation Variability and Dating of Flood Events for the Millennium Between 3250 and 2250 Years BC for the Main Region, Southern Germany

Abstract

We present a millennial-long reconstruction of summer precipitation variability for the Main region (MR) in southern Germany (3250 BC to 2250 BC) based on subfossil-oak, tree-ring data. Wood-anatomical flood markers have been identified and used for dating flood events providing additional information of hydro-climatic dynamics. Reconstructed precipitation variability and flood occurrence show a noticeable shift which coincides with a decrease in replication (number of trees) of the Holocene Oak Chronology (HOC) Hohenheim around 2750 BC. The reconstruction is based on a linear climate-growth model derived from total ring width (TRW) data from living oak trees from the MR using the past approximately 130 years as a basis. The best response was identified for the precipitation sum between April 1st and July 10th providing an r 2 = 0.31.