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Unusual Southern Hemisphere tree growth patterns induced by changes in the Southern Annular Mode

Abstract

Recent changes in the summer climate of the Southern Hemisphere extra-tropics are primarily related to the dominance of the positive phase of the Southern Annular Mode1,2. This shift in the behaviour of the Southern Annular Mode—essentially a measure of the pressure gradient between Southern Hemisphere mid and high latitudes—has been predominantly induced by polar stratospheric ozone depletion2,3,4. The concomitant southward expansion of the dry subtropical belts5,6 could have consequences for forest growth. Here, we use tree-ring records from over 3,000 trees in South America, Tasmania and New Zealand to identify dominant patterns of tree growth in recent centuries. We show that the foremost patterns of growth between 1950 and 2000 differed significantly from those in the previous 250 years. Specifically, growth was higher than the long-term average in the subalpine forests of Tasmania and New Zealand, but lower in the dry-mesic forests of Patagonia. We further demonstrate that variations in the Southern Annular Mode can explain 12–48% of the tree growth anomalies in the latter half of the twentieth century. Tree-ring-based reconstructions of summer Southern Annular Mode indices suggest that the high frequency of the positive phase since the 1950s is unprecedented in the past 600 years. We propose that changes in the Southern Annular Mode have significantly altered tree growth patterns in the Southern Hemisphere.

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Figure 1: Long-term variations in tree growth at mid latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere.
Figure 2: Influences of the SAM on regional climate and forest growth.
Figure 3: Variations in regional tree-ring chronologies and the summer SAM.
Figure 4: Summer variations in the SAM for the past 600 years.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) CRN 2047, which is supported by the US National Science Foundation (Grant GEO-0452325), by the Argentinean Council of Research and Technology (CONICET), the Argentinean Agency for Promotion of Science and Technology (PICTR02-186) and by FONDECYT Grant Nos 1090479 and 1120965 from the National Research Fund of Chile. G.J.M. is supported by the UK Natural Environment Research Council through the British Antarctic Survey research programme Polar Science for Planet Earth. K.A. is supported by Australian Research Council grant DP120104320 to P. Baker. This work benefited from discussions with P. Sheppard and A. Bahamondez.

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R.V., A.L., M.H.M., R.U., B.H.L. and G.J.M. designed the study, interpreted the data and wrote the paper. J.A.B, G.J.M., D.A., R.N. and A.M.S. assisted with climate data, data analysis and figures. R.V., I.M., M.S.M. and A.M.S. provided tree-ring chronologies for Argentina. A.L., D.A.C., R.U., C.L., J.C.A., E.C. and A.H. provided tree-ring records for Chile. E.R.C., P.F., K.A. and J.G.P. provided tree-ring chronologies for New Zealand and Tasmania. All authors discussed the results and commented jointly on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Ricardo Villalba.

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Villalba, R., Lara, A., Masiokas, M. et al. Unusual Southern Hemisphere tree growth patterns induced by changes in the Southern Annular Mode. Nature Geosci 5, 793–798 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1613

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