Tree-ring widths from millennium-old Huon pine (Lagarostrobos franklinii) trees have been used to reconstruct warm season (November-April) temperatures back to AD 900 for Tasmania. The reconstruction indicates that the most recent 100 years of climate have been highly unusual, with the coldest and warmest 25-year periods occurring from 1890 to 1914 and 1965 to 1989, respectively. Although the most recent 25-year period is warmer than any comparable period over the past 1090 years, it is not yet statistically unprecedented. Some evidence for the Medieval Warm Period and the 'Little Ice Age' can be found in the reconstruction, especially during the twelfth and seventeenth centuries respectively. However, the latter is weakly expressed compared to many records from the northern hemisphere, suggesting that the southern oceans may have significantly moderated its effect on Tasmania. Regular oscillations on the order of 30, 56, 80 and 180 years in length have been identified in the reconstruction using spectral analysis. These oscillations cannot be easily linked to climatic forcing functions related to solar or volcanic activity. Thus, they are best regarded as arising from the internal dynamics of the ocean-atmosphere-cryosphere system.
Akaike, H.1974: A new look at statistical model identification . IEEE Transactions on Automatic ControlAC-19, 716-23.
2.
Aristarain, A.J., Jouzel, J. and Lorius, C.1990: A 400 years isotope record of the Antarctic Peninsula climate. Geophysical Research Letters17, 2369-72.
3.
Barry, R.G.1978: In Pittock, A.B., Frakes, L.A., Jenssen, D. , Peterson, J.A. and Zillman, J.W., editors, Climatic change and variability: a Southern Hemisphere perspective. London : Cambridge University Press, 150-66.
4.
Berger, A., Melice, J.L. and Hinnov, L.1991: A strategy for frequency spectra of Quaternary climate records: Climate Dynamics5, 227-40.
5.
Box, G.E.P. and Jenkins, G.M.1970: Time series analysis: forecasting and control. San Francisco: Holden-Day.
6.
Briffa, K.R., Jones, P.D., Bartholin, T.S., Eckstein, D., Schweingruber, F.H., Karlen, W., Zetterberg, P. and Eronen, M.1992: Fennoscandian summers from AD 500: temperature changes on short and long timescales. Climate Dynamics, in press.
7.
Bryson, R.A.1974: A perspective on climatic change. Science184, 753-60.
8.
Burrows, C.J.1976: Icebergs in the southern ocean. New Zealand Geographer32, 127-38.
9.
Campbell, D.A.1982: Preliminary estimates of summer streamflow for Tasmania . In Hughes, M.K., Kelly, P.M., Pilcher, J.R. and LaMarche, Jr. V.C., editors, Climate from tree rings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 170-77.
10.
Cook, E.R.1985: A time series analysis approach to tree-ring standardization. PhD Dissertation, University of Arizona, Tucson.
11.
— 1987: The decomposition of tree-ring series for environmental studies. Tree-Ring Bulletin47, 37-59.
12.
— 1990: Bootstrap confidence intervals for red spruce ring-width chronologies and an assessment of age-related bias in recent growth trends . Canadian Journal of Forest Research20, 1326-31.
13.
Cook, E.R. and Peters, K.1981: The smoothing spline: a new approach to standardizing forest interior tree-ring width series for dendroclimatic studies. Tree-ringBulletin41, 45-53.
14.
Cook, E., Bird, T., Peterson, M., Barbetti, M., Buckley, B., D'Arrigo, R., Francey, R. and Tans, P.1991: Climatic change in Tasmania inferred from a 1089-year tree-ring chronology of Huon pine. Science253, 1266-68.
15.
Davis, R.E.1976: Predictability of sea surface temperature and sea level pressure anomalies over the North Pacific Ocean. Journal ofPhysical Oceanography6, 249-66.
16.
Drosdowsky, W. and Williams, M.1991: The Southern Oscillation in the Australian region. Part I: Anomalies at the extremes of the oscillation. Journal of Climate4, 619-38.
17.
Dunwiddie, P.D. and LaMarche, Jr., V.C.1980: Dendrochronological characteristics of some native Australian trees. Australian Forestry43, 124-35.
18.
Eddy, J.A.1977: Climate and the changing sun. Climatic Change1, 173-90.
19.
Elsner, J.B. and Tsonis, A.A.1991: Do bidecadal oscillations exist in the global temperature record?Nature353, 551-53.
20.
Emerson, J.D. and Strenio, J.1983: Boxplots and batch comparisons. In Hoaglin, D.C., Mosteller, F. and Tukey, J.W., editors, Understanding robust and exploratory data analysis. New York: John Wiley & Sons,58-96.
21.
Enomoto, H.1991: Fluctuations of snow accumulation in the Antarctic and sea level pressure in the Southern Hemisphere in the last 100 years. Climatic Change18, 67-87.
22.
Eriksson, M.1989: Integrating Forest Growth and Dendrochronological Methodologies. PhD Dissertation, University of Minnesota , Minneapolis.
23.
Filion, L., Payette, S., Gauthier, L. and Boutin, Y.1986: Light rings in subarctic conifers as a dendrochronological tool. Quaternary Research26, 272-79.
24.
Fletcher, J.O., Radok, U. and Slutz, R.1982: Climatic signals of the Antarctic Ocean. Journal of Geophysical Research87, 4269-76.
25.
Folland, C.K., Parker, D.E. and Kates, F.E.1984: Worldwide marine temperature fluctuation, 1856-1981 . Nature310, 670-73.
26.
Fritts, H.C.1976: Tree rings and climate. New York: Academic Press.
27.
Ghil, M. and Vautard, R.1991: Interdecadal oscillations and the warming trend in global temperature time series. Nature350, 324-27.
28.
Gibson, N.1986: Conservation and management of Huon Pine in Tasmania . Wildlife Division Technical Report 86/3, National Parks and Wildlife Service, Tasmania.
29.
Graybill, D.A. and Shiyatov, S.G.1989: A 1009 year tree-ring reconstruction of mean June-July temperature deviations in the Polar Urals. In Nobel, R., Juri, R.L. and Jensen, K.F., editors, Air pollution effects on vegetation including forest ecosystems. USDA Forest Service, Broomall, PA. 37-42.
30.
Grove, J.M.1988: The Little Ice Age. London: Methuen.
31.
Hammer, C.U., Clausen, H.B. and Dansgaard, W.1980: Greenland ice sheet evidence for post-glacial volcanism and its climatic impact. Nature288, 230-35.
32.
Hansen, J. and Lebedeff, S.1987: Global trends of measured surface air temperature . Journal of Geophysical Research92, 13345-72.
33.
Hickey, J.E. and Felton, K.C.1988: Subalpine Huon pine near Frenchmans Cap. The TasmanianNaturalist93,1-4.
34.
Jacoby, G.C. and Cook, E.R.1981: Past temperature variations inferred from a 400-year tree-ring chronology from Yukon Territory, Canada. Arctic and Alpine Research13, 409-18.
35.
Jacoby, G.C., Cook, E.R. and Ulan, L.D.1985: Reconstructed summer degree days in central Alaska and northwestern Canada since 1524. Quaternary Research23, 18-26.
36.
Jacoby, G.C. and D'Arrigo, R.D.1989: Reconstructed Northern Hemisphere annual temperature since 1671 based on high-latitude tree-ring data from North America. Climatic Change14, 39-59.
37.
Jenkins, G.M. and Watts, D.G.1968: Spectral analysis and its applications. San Francisco: Holden-Day.
38.
Jones, P.D., Raper, S.C.B. and Wigley, T.M.L.1986: Southern hemisphere surface air temperature variations: 1851-1984. Journal of Climate and Applied Meteorology25, 1213-30.
39.
Lamb, H.H.1965: The medieval warm epoch and its sequel. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology1, 13-37.
40.
— 1977: Climate: present, past, and future, Volume 2, climate history and the future. London: Methuen.
41.
LaMarche, Jr.V.C. , 1974: Paleoclimatic inferences from long tree-ring records. Science183, 1043-48.
42.
— 1975: Potential of tree rings for reconstruction of past climate variations in the Southern Hemisphere. In World Meteorological Organization Technical Publication 421, Proceedings of the WMO/ IMAP Symposium on Long-Term Climatic Fluctuations. Geneva, Switzerland, pp. 21-30.
43.
LaMarche, Jr., V.C. and Pittock, A.B.1982: Preliminary temperature reconstruction for Tasmania . In Hughes, M.K., Kelly, P.M., Pilcher, J.R. and LaMarche, Jr., V.C., editors, Climate from tree rings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 177-85.
44.
LaMarche, V.C., Jr. and Hirschboeck, K.K.1984: Frost rings in trees as records of major volcanic eruptions. Nature307, 121-26.
— 1976: Nondeterministic theories of climatic change. Climatic Change6, 495-506.
47.
Marple, S.L.1987: Digital spectral analysis with applications. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
48.
Meko, D.M.1981: Applications of Box-Jenkins methods of time series analysis to the reconstruction of drought from tree rings. PhD Dissertation , University of Arizona, Tucson .
Morgan, V.I.1985: An oxygen isotope - climate record from Law Dome, Antarctica . Climatic Change7, 415-26.
51.
Newell, N.E., Newell, R.E., Hsiung, J. and Wu, Z.1989: Global marine temperature variation and the solar magnetic cycle. Geophysical Research Letters16, 311-14.
52.
Norton, D.A.1987: Reconstruction of past river flow and precipitation in Canterbury, New Zealand from analysis of tree rings. Journal of Hydrology (NZ) 26, 161-74.
53.
Norton, D.A., Briffa, K.R. and Salinger, M.J.1989: Reconstruction of New Zealand summer temperatures to 1730 AD using dendroclimatic techniques. International Journal of Climatology9, 633-44.
54.
Ogden, J.1978a: On the dendrochronological potential of Australian trees . Australian Journal of Ecology3, 339-56.
55.
— 1978b: Investigations of the dendrochronology of the genus Athrotaxis D. Don (Taxodiaceae) in Tasmania. Tree-Ring Bulletin38, 1-13.
56.
Peterson, MJ1990: Distribution and conservation of Huon Pine. TasmaniaForestry Commission, Hobart.
57.
Pilcher, J.R.1989: Primary data. In Cook, E.R. and Kairiukstis, L.A. Methods of dendrochronology: applications in the environmental sciences . Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers , 23-96.
58.
Ropelewski, C.F. and Halpert, M.S.1987: Global and regional scale precipitation patterns associated with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. MonthlyWeather Review115, 1606-26.
59.
Salinger, M.J.1979: New Zealand climate: the temperature record, historical data and some agricultural implications. Climatic Change2, 109-26.
60.
Salinger, M.J. and Gunn, J.M.1975: Recent climatic warming around New Zealand. Nature256, 396-98.
61.
Schulman, E.1956: Dendroclimatic changes in semiarid America. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
62.
Trenberth, K.E.1976: Fluctuations and trends in indices of the southern hemisphere circulation. Quarterly Journal of theRoyal Meteorological Society102, 65-75.
63.
Villalba, R.1990: Climatic fluctuations in northern Patagonia during the last 1000 years as inferred from tree-ring records. Quaternary Research34, 346-60.
64.
Williams, L.D. and Wigley, T.M.L.1983: A comparison of evidence for late holocene summer temperature variations in the Northern Hemisphere. Quaternary Research20, 286-307.
