2020 - What Tree Rings Can Tell Us

SPECIAL SE C TION | D R O U G H T
DENDROCHRONOLOGY Tree Story: The History

of the World Written
What tree rings can tell us

in Rings
Valerie Trouet
Johns Hopkins University
Press, 2020. 256 pp.
From ancient timbers to mountaintop forests, trees hold
important climate clues
By Lori Daniels and to the tops of mountains. Here, they ex- increments of a stalagmite deep in a Scottish
tract increment cores using hand-operated cave, for example, have revealed the seesaw
M
any of us have counted the rings of borers, a nondestructive way to collect rings climate of the North Atlantic Ocean, a driver
a tree to reveal its age. But did you from living trees. Dendrochronologists can of contemporary global climate and the key
know that evidence of epic fires, vol- also be found analyzing archaeological ruins to understanding the onset of the Little Ice
canoes, hurricanes, floods, drought, and shipwrecks at the bottom of the ocean, Age. Meanwhile, the tree rings of blue oaks
famine, and the rise and fall of an- where tree rings of past centuries are pre- in the Central Valley reflect regional drought
cient empires is also embedded in served in ancient timbers. Trouet entertains and snow accumulation in the nearby Sierra
a tree’s circumference? Valerie Trouet’s Tree readers with adventurous tales of accessing Nevada, showing California’s recent mega-
Story is an informative introduction to the remote field sites and the inevitable mishaps drought to be a 500-year record.
science of tree rings. An accomplished and that occur when one is navigating an unfa- Cross-referencing tree rings with marine
globally recognized dendroclimatologist, miliar culture using a foreign language. records from corals, fish otoliths, and bi-
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Trouet is knowledgeable across diverse fields Climate history is often embedded in valve shells has enriched our understand-
of science and is a talented writer and engag- long tree-ring chronologies. In some cases, ing of the relationship between the ocean
ing storyteller. the relations are intuitive—wide rings in and the atmosphere, shedding light on, for
Long chronologies are formed by cross- trees growing on mountaintops indicate example, the El Niño–Southern Oscillation
dating the rings of living trees with those warm years, whereas narrow rings in trees and other variations in the Pacific climate
of dead trees. The oldest living dendrocho- of semiarid climates indicate hot, dry sum- system. Cross-referencing tree rings with ice
nologically dated tree is a bristlecone pine in mers. Other relations are more challenging cores from the remote ice sheets of Green-
California that is ~5000 years old. The longest to decipher and require multiple proxies land and Antarctica, meanwhile, has allowed
tree-ring chronology is composed of living and other climate-sensitive biotic and abiotic us to chronicle volcanic eruptions that had
and archaeological oak-pines from Germany time series. Drawing from a diversity of tree- global effects on temperature, and river flows
and spans an astounding 12,650 years. ring research and interdisciplinary collabora- that drove agricultural collapse and famines
The quest for long-lived trees leads den- tions, Trouet chronicles fascinating examples in countries ranging from Ireland to Egypt.
drochronologists deep into the wilderness of how dendrochronology helps to answer Trouet even demonstrates how tree rings
questions about past environments and hu- helped decipher the environmental context
man history. of the bubonic plague, revealing how climate
The reviewer is at the Department of Forest and Conservation
Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T Drought-sensitive tree rings from the Med- change amplified past epidemics.
1Z4, Canada. Email: lori.daniels@ubc.ca iterranean cross-referenced with the annual In Tree Story, Trouet tackles some of the
pressing environmental challenges of this
millennium. She clearly explains the science
underpinning the now-famous “hockey-stick”
curve and deftly debunks the arguments of
climate-change deniers. She shows how tree-
ring science provides distinctive context to
the record-breaking droughts, hurricanes,
and wildfires that have plagued the world in
the past decade. In the case of wildfires, us-
ing crossdated fire-scar records and tree-ring
climate proxies, she shows how the combina-
tion of displacement of indigenous peoples
by Europeans, ongoing land-use change, and
fire suppression has transformed landscapes,
making them more flammable, especially as
the climate warms.
Using tree rings to disentangle complex
interactions, Trouet shows how past societies
have dealt with unexpected climatic changes.
She concludes with a challenge to scientists
and our society: For the first time in human
PHOTO: VALERIE TROUET
history, thanks to centuries of scientific dis-

coveries and research, we have foresight into
the changes that lie ahead. “We have our
work cut out for us,” she warns. j
Dendrochronologist Zakia Hassan Khamisi measures tree-ring widths in a Tanzanian Brachystegia spiciformis. 10.1126/science.abb3894
250 17 APRIL 2020 • VOL 368 ISSUE 6488 sciencemag.org SCIENCE
Published by AAAS
What tree rings can tell us
Lori Daniels
Science 368 (6488), 250.

DOI: 10.1126/science.abb3894
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SPECIAL SE C TION | D R O U G H T

DENDROCHRONOLOGY Tree Story: The History

What tree rings can tell us

Downloaded from http://science.sciencemag.org/ on April 16, 2020

history, thanks to centuries of scientific dis-

250 17 APRIL 2020 • VOL 368 ISSUE 6488 sciencemag.org SCIENCE

Science 368 (6488), 250.

Downloaded from http://science.sciencemag.org/ on April 16, 2020

Use of this article is subject to the Terms of Service

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