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Few records of spring paleoclimate are available for boreal Canada, as biological proxies recording the beginning of the warm season are uncommon. Given the spring warming observed during the last decades, and its impact on snowmelt and hydrological processes, searching for spring climate proxies is receiving increasing attention. Tree‐ring anatomical features and intra‐annual widths were used to reconstruct the regional March to May mean air temperature from 1770 to 2016 in eastern boreal Canada. Nested principal component regressions calibrated on 116 years of gridded temperature data were developed from one Fraxinus nigra and 10 Pinus banksiana sites. The reconstruction indicated three distinct phases in spring temperature variability since 1770. Ample phases of multi‐decadal warm and cold springs persisted until the end of the Little Ice Age (1850–1870 CE) and were gradually replaced since the 1940s by decadal to interannual variability associated with an increase in the frequency and magnitude of warm springs. Significant correlations with other paleotemperature records, gridded snow cover extent and runoff support that historical high flooding were associated with late, cold springs with heavy snow cover. Most of the high magnitude spring floods reconstructed for the nearby Harricana River also coincided with the lowest reconstructed spring temperature per decade. However, the last 40 years of observed and reconstructed mean spring temperature showed a reduction in the number of extreme cold springs contrasting with the last few decades of extreme flooding in the eastern Canadian boreal region. This result indicates that warmer late spring mean temperatures on average may contribute, among other factors, to advance the spring break‐up and to likely shift the contribution of snow to rain in spring flooding processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ring-width data from 138 sites in the Canadian Prairie Provinces and adjacent regions are used to estimate summer drought severity during the past several hundred years. The network was divided into five regional groups based on geography, tree species, and length of record: the eastern Rockies, northern Saskatchewan, central Manitoba, southern Manitoba, and northwestern Ontario. Regional tree-ring records are primarily related to summer moisture and drought conditions, and are less responsive to droughts caused by deficits in winter precipitation. These summer-sensitive data are not linearly related to major modes of climate variability, including ENSO and the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO), which primarily affect the climate of western Canada during winter. Extended drought records inferred from tree rings indicate that drought on the Canadian Prairies has exhibited considerable spatial heterogeneity over the last several centuries. For northern Saskatchewan and northwestern Ontario, intervals of persistently low tree growth during the twentieth century were just as long as or longer than low-growth intervals in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries. Longer records from southern Alberta suggest that the most intense dry spell in that area during the last 500 yr occurred during the 1720s. At the eastern side of the prairies, the longest dry event is centered around 1700 and may coincide with low lake stands in Manitoba, Minnesota, and North Dakota. Although the Canadian Prairies were dry at times during the 1500s, there is no regional analog to the sixteenth-century “megadroughts” that affected much of the western United States and northern Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Five independent multicentury reconstructions of the July Canadian Drought Code and one reconstruction of the mean July–August temperature were developed using a network of 120 well-replicated tree-ring chronologies covering the area of the eastern Boreal Plains to the eastern Boreal Shield of Canada. The reconstructions were performed using 54 time-varying reconstruction submodels that explained up to 50% of the regional drought variance during the period of 1919–84. Spatial correlation fields on the six reconstructions revealed that the meridional component of the climate system from central to eastern Canada increased since the mid–nineteenth century. The most obvious change was observed in the decadal scale of variability. Using 500-hPa geopotential height and wind composites, this zonal to meridional transition was interpreted as a response to an amplification of long waves flowing over the eastern North Pacific into boreal Canada, from approximately 1851 to 1940. Composites with NOAA Extended Reconstructed SSTs indicated a coupling between the meridional component and tropical and North Pacific SST for a period covering at least the past 150 yr, supporting previous findings of a summertime global ocean–atmosphere–land surface coupling. This change in the global atmospheric circulation could be a key element toward understanding the observed temporal changes in the Canadian boreal forest fire regimes over the past 150 yr. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trends and periodicities in summer drought severity are investigated on a network of Canadian Drought Code (CDC) monthly average indices extending from central Quebec to western Manitoba and covering the instrumental period 1913–1998. The relationship and coherency between CDC indices and ocean–atmosphere circulation patterns are also examined. Trend analyses indicate that drought severity is unchanged in eastern and central Canada. Composite analyses indicate that for most of the corridor, severe drought seasons occur with a combination of positive 500-hPa geopotential height anomalies centered over the Gulf of Alaska and over the Baffin Bay. Additional severe drought seasons develop across the corridor in the presence of positive height anomalies located over or upstream of the affected regions. According to spectral analyses, the North Atlantic and the North Pacific circulation patterns modulate the drought variability at the decadal scale. Our results lead us to conclude that climate warming and the increases in the amount and frequency of precipitation in eastern Canada during the last century had no significant impact on summer drought severity. It is unlikely that linear climate change contributed to the change in the boreal forest dynamics observed over the past 150 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigates the influence of climate change, forest fires and insects outbreaks on eastern larch stand dynamics in Quebec. Use of larch and black spruce in the stem analysis conducted; Occurrence of larch establishment from surviving stems during a severe outbreak; Ability of eastern larch to tolerate high soil moisture and acidity.

With the objective of understanding how vegetation was structured in four Larix laricina (Du Roi) K. Koch dominated wetlands in north-western Quebec, 186 point-centred quarters were sampled in four stands. For each point, both biotic and abiotic variables were collected and species cover was recorded. Divisive hierarchical classification analysis (Twinspan) identified nine vegetation clusters: i) Larix laricina & Spiraea alba, ii) Larix laricina & Kalmia angustifolia, iii) Larix laricina, Picea mariana & Alnus rugosa, iv) Larix laricina & Betula pumila, v) Thuja occidentalis & Trientalis borealis, vi) Abies balsamea & Betula papyrifera, vii) Fraxinus nigra & Onoclea sensibilis, viii) Alnus rugosa, and ix) Eleocharis smallii. Results of the canonical correspondence analyses indicated that the distribution of these clusters was mainly related to (i) distance from shore, (ii) shade (canopy cover), (iii) substrate nitrate concentration (in relation to the abundance of Kalmia angustifolia and Alnus rugosa), (iv) substrate pH (in relation to the abundance of Sphagnum spp.), and (v) substrate conductivity. Several characteristics of the water table also affected species distribution, including pH, depth, and carbon concentration. Further studies should address the effect of the presence of Kalmia angustifolia and Alnus rugosa on larch growth.Key words: larch, wetland, vegetation analysis, flooding, boreal forest.Avec pour objectif de comprendre la distribution de la végétation dans quatre tourbières dominées par Larix laricina (Du Roi) K. Koch au Nord-Ouest de la forêt boréale québécoise, 186 quadrants centrés sur le point ont été échantillonnés à l'intérieur de quatre sites. Pour chacun des points, des variables abiotiques et biotiques ont été récoltées et le recouvrement en espèces a été noté. L'analyse par classification divisive hierarchique (Twinspan) a désigné neuf groupements végétaux: (i) Larix laricina & Spiraea alba, (ii) Larix laricina & Kalmia angustifolia, (iii) Larix laricina, Picea mariana & Alnus rugosa, (iv) Larix laricina & Betula pumila, (v) Thuja occidentalis & Trientalis borealis, (vi) Abies balsamea & Betula papyrifera, (vii) Fraxinus nigra & Onoclea sensibilis, (viii) Alnus rugosa et (ix) Eleocharis smallii. Les analyses canoniques des correspondances ont indiqué que la distribution de ces groupements était principalement reliée à (i) la distance de la rive, (ii) l'interférence lumineuse et certaines caractéristiques du substrat, entre autre (iii) la concentration en nitrate du substrat (notamment en relation avec l'abondance de Kalmia angustifolia et d'Alnus rugosa), (iv) le pH (en relation avec l'abondance de Sphagnum spp.) et (v) la conductivité. Un lien a été démontré entre les caractéristiques de la nappe phréatique et la distribution des espèces, notamment en relation avec le pH, la profondeur et la concentration en carbone. Des études plus approfondies devraient être conduites afin de déterminer l'impact de la présence des espèces Kalmia angustifolia et Alnus rugosa sur la croissance du mélèze.Mots clés : mélèze, tourbière, analyse de végétation, inondation, forêt boréale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]