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Interannual variability in the global land carbon sink is strongly related to variations in tropical temperature and rainfall. This association suggests an important role for moisture-driven fluctuations in tropical vegetation productivity, but empirical evidence to quantify the responsible ecological processes is missing. Such evidence can be obtained from tree-ring data that quantify variability in a major vegetation productivity component: woody biomass growth. Here we compile a pantropical tree-ring network to show that annual woody biomass growth increases primarily with dry-season precipitation and decreases with dry-season maximum temperature. The strength of these dry-season climate responses varies among sites, as reflected in four robust and distinct climate response groups of tropical tree growth derived from clustering. Using cluster and regression analyses, we find that dry-season climate responses are amplified in regions that are drier, hotter and more climatically variable. These amplification patterns suggest that projected global warming will probably aggravate drought-induced declines in annual tropical vegetation productivity. Our study reveals a previously underappreciated role of dry-season climate variability in driving the dynamics of tropical vegetation productivity and consequently in influencing the land carbon sink.

Both increases in temperature and changes in precipitation may limit future tree growth, but rising atmospheric CO2 could offset some of these stressors through increased plant Water Use Efficiency (WUE). The net balance between the negative impacts of climate change and positive effects of CO2 on tree growth is crucial for ecotones, where increased climate stress could drive mortality and shifts in range. Here, we quantify the effects of climate, stand structure, and rising CO2 on both annual tree-ring growth increment and intrinsic WUE (iWUE) at a savanna-forest boundary in the Upper Midwest United States. Taking a Bayesian hierarchical modelling approach, we find that plant iWUE increased by ~ 16–23% over the course of the twentieth century, but on average, tree-ring growth increments do not significantly increase. Consistent with higher iWUE under increased CO2 and recent wetting, we observe a decrease in sensitivity of tree growth to annual precipitation, leading to ~ 35–41% higher growth under dry conditions compared to trees of similar size in the past. However, an emerging interaction between summer maximum temperatures and annual precipitation diminishes the water-savings benefit under hot and dry conditions. This decrease in precipitation sensitivity, and the interaction between temperature and precipitation are strongest in open canopy microclimates, suggesting that stand structure may modulate response to future changes. Overall, while higher iWUE may provide some water savings benefits to growth under normal drought conditions, near-term future temperature increases combined with drought events could drive growth declines of about 50%.

Climate extremes over the mid-latitudes are driven by a combination of thermodynamical and dynamical factors. In Europe, the primary dynamical driver of summer climate extremes is the position of the jet stream over the Europe-North Atlantic (EU) region. In certain configurations, the EU jet creates a summer climate dipole between northwestern and southeastern Europe that can result in contrasting extreme weather conditions in the two regions. To study long-term variability in the EU jet configuration, as well as its potential impact on past climate extremes and human systems, we have reconstructed EU jet variability over the past 800+ years (1200-2005 CE). To accomplish this, we have combined five European tree-ring chronologies to reconstruct the July-August jet stream latitude for the EU domain (30°W - 40°E; EU JSL). Our reconstruction explains 40% of summer EU JSL variability over the instrumental period (1948-2005 CE) with strong skill.We find that, over the past 800 years, opposite phases of EU JSL variability have consistently resulted in contrasting climate extremes, including heatwaves, droughts, floods, and wildfires, between northwestern Europe, specifically the British Isles, and southeastern Europe, specifically the Balkans and Italy. This EU JSL-driven summer climate dipole is captured in a network of historical documentary data that further document the societal impacts of EU JSL-related climate extremes on both sides of the dipole.Our summer EU JSL reconstruction shows a century-long negative phase from ca. 1355-1450 CE, corresponding to anomalously wet and cool summers over the British Isles and dry and hot conditions over the Balkans. This negative phase is comparable to the recent (1970-present) EU JSL configuration. We also found a positive phase, with opposite summer climate dipole conditions, from ca. 1812-1861 CE. Our results thus suggest that the EU JSL has been a long-term primary driver of the European summer climate dipole, as well as of the associated climate extremes and societal impacts.

The Little Ice Age (LIA) was the coldest period of the past millennium, characterized by high-density volcanism, low solar activity, and increased Northern Hemisphere sea-ice cover. Past studies of LIA circulation changes over the North Atlantic sector have typically referenced the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), though recent studies have noted that LIA climate patterns appear to be possess complexity not captured by an NAO analog. Here, we present a new precipitation-sensitive stalagmite record from northern Italy that covers the past 800 years at high resolution. Combined with terrestrial and marine records in the North Atlantic realm, we show that in the early LIA (1470-1610 C.E.), a multi-decadal scale atmospheric blocking over northern Europe split the westerlies away from central and northern Europe, and towards the Arctic and the Mediterranean. This enhanced blocking results in a cold and dry climate over central and northern Europe, and wetter conditions over the Mediterranean. The LIA atmospheric blocking could be caused by the concurrent sea-ice reduction in the Arctic and the Spörer solar minimum. With ongoing ice melting in the northern high latitudes and decreasing solar irradiance in the coming years, the early LIA may potentially serve as an analog for European hydroclimatic conditions in the coming decades.

The Yellow River (YR) is the fifth-longest and the most sediment-laden river in the world. Frequent historical YR flooding events, however, have resulted in tremendous loss of life and property, whereas in recent decades YR runoff and sediment load have fallen sharply. To put these recent changes in a longer-term context, we reconstructed natural runoff for the middle reach of the YR back to 1492 CE using a network of 31 moisture-sensitive tree-ring width chronologies. Prior to anthropogenic interference that started in the 1960s, the lowest natural runoff over the past 500 y occurred during 1926 to 1932 CE, a drought period that can serve as a benchmark for future planning of YR water allocation. Since the late 1980s, the low observed YR runoff has exceeded the natural range of runoff variability, a consequence of the combination of decreasing precipitation and increasing water consumption by direct and indirect human activities, particularly agricultural irrigation. This reduced runoff has resulted in an estimated 58% reduction of the sediment load in the upper reach of the YR and 29% reduction in the middle reach.

The impact of climatic change on forest ecosystems has received considerable attention, but our understanding of the modulation of this impact by elevational differences and by species interaction is still limited. Here, we analyse tree-ring-based growth-climate relationships for two dominant tree species along an 800-m elevational gradient on Jeju Island, South Korea. Both species, broadleaf Quercus mongolica (QUMO) and coniferous Abies koreana (ABKO), grow at the southern end of their distributional range and they have adjacent altitudinal ranges. We use static and moving bootstrapped correlation analysis to identify the effect of recent warming on their growth. QUMO is primarily positively influenced by moisture during the previous autumn at its upper elevational distribution. Recent warming, however, has diminished this relationship, while the enhancing impact of warm and dry summer conditions on QUMO growth has increased. These recent shifts in growth-climate relationship suggest an upward migration potential for QUMO due to warming-enhanced growth at higher elevations. ABKO growth, on the contrary, is primarily reduced by high winter and summer temperatures. This negative relationship has become more explicit in recent decades, particularly at lower elevations. At the highest elevation, however, ABKO growth-temperature relationship has consistently become more positive in the most recent decades. In the elevational zone where ABKO and QUMO co-exist, warming plays a primary role in ABKO growth reduction, while QUMO growth increases and thus induces a potential upward migration of QUMO. This combined effect can lead to population decline of ABKO. Our results significantly enhance our understanding of the impact of climate warming on two interacting species and provide information necessary for adaptation strategies to preserve declining ABKO populations.

Tree-ring intra-annual stable isotopes (δ13C and δ18O) are powerful tools for revealing plant ecophysiological responses to climatic extremes. We analyzed interannual and fine-scale intra-annual variability of tree-ring δ13C and δ18O in Chinese red pine (Pinus massoniana) from southeastern China to explore environmental drivers and potential trade-offs between the main physiological controls. We show that wet season relative humidity (May–October RH) drove interannual variability of δ18O and intra-annual variability of tree-ring δ18O. It also drove intra-annual variability of tree-ring δ13C, whereas interannual variability was mainly controlled by February–May temperature and September–October RH. Furthermore, intra-annual tree-ring δ18O variability was larger during wet years compared with dry years, whereas δ13C variability was lower during wet years compared with dry years. As a result of these differences in intra-annual variability amplitude, process-based models (we used the Roden model for δ18O and the Farquhar model for δ13C) captured the intra-annual δ18O pattern better in wet years compared with dry years, whereas intra-annual δ13C pattern was better simulated in dry years compared with wet years. This result suggests a potential asymmetric bias in process-based models in capturing the interplay of the different mechanistic processes (i.e., isotopic source and leaf-level enrichment) operating in dry versus wet years. We therefore propose an intra-annual conceptual model considering a dynamic trade-off between the isotopic source and leaf-level enrichment in different tree-ring parts to understand how climate and ecophysiological processes drive intra-annual tree-ring stable isotopic variability under humid climate conditions.

The impacts of inland flooding caused by tropical cyclones (TCs), including loss of life, infrastructure disruption, and alteration of natural landscapes, have increased over recent decades. While these impacts are well documented, changes in TC precipitation extremes—the proximate cause of such inland flooding—have been more difficult to detect. Here, we present a latewood tree-ring–based record of seasonal (June 1 through October 15) TC precipitation sums (ΣTCP) from the region in North America that receives the most ΣTCP: coastal North and South Carolina. Our 319-y-long ΣTCP reconstruction reveals that ΣTCP extremes (≥0.95 quantile) have increased by 2 to 4 mm/decade since 1700 CE, with most of the increase occurring in the last 60 y. Consistent with the hypothesis that TCs are moving slower under anthropogenic climate change, we show that seasonal ΣTCP along the US East Coast are positively related to seasonal average TC duration and TC translation speed.

Tree-ring chronologies underpin the majority of annually-resolved reconstructions of Common Era climate. However, they are derived using different datasets and techniques, the ramifications of which have hitherto been little explored. Here, we report the results of a double-blind experiment that yielded 15 Northern Hemisphere summer temperature reconstructions from a common network of regional tree-ring width datasets. Taken together as an ensemble, the Common Era reconstruction mean correlates with instrumental temperatures from 1794–2016 CE at 0.79 (p, Tree rings are a crucial archive for Common Era climate reconstructions, but the degree to which methodological decisions influence outcomes is not well known. Here, the authors show how different approaches taken by 15 different groups influence the ensemble temperature reconstruction from the same data.

X-ray microdensitometry on annually resolved tree-ring samples has gained an exceptional position in last-millennium paleoclimatology through the maximum latewood density (MXD) parameter, but also increasingly through other density parameters. For 50 years, X-ray based measurement techniques have been the de facto standard. However, studies report offsets in the mean levels for MXD measurements derived from different laboratories, indicating challenges of accuracy and precision. Moreover, reflected visible light-based techniques are becoming increasingly popular, and wood anatomical techniques are emerging as a potentially powerful pathway to extract density information at the highest resolution. Here we review the current understanding and merits of wood density for tree-ring research, associated microdensitometric techniques, and analytical measurement challenges. The review is further complemented with a careful comparison of new measurements derived at 17 laboratories, using several different techniques. The new experiment allowed us to corroborate and refresh "long-standing wisdom" but also provide new insights. Key outcomes include (i) a demonstration of the need for mass/volume-based recalibration to accurately estimate average ring density; (ii) a substantiation of systematic differences in MXD measurements that cautions for great care when combining density data sets for climate reconstructions; and (iii) insights into the relevance of analytical measurement resolution in signals derived from tree-ring density data. Finally, we provide recommendations expected to facilitate futureinter-comparability and interpretations for global change research.

To improve our understanding of climate variability in the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and its sensitivity to external forcings, recent temperature changes need to be placed in a long-term historical context. Here, we present two tree-ring based temperature reconstructions: a 1003-year (1000–2002 CE) annual temperature reconstruction for the northeastern TP (NETP) based on seven series and a 522-year (1489–2010 CE) summer (June–July–August) temperature reconstruction for the southeastern TP (SETP) based on 11 series. Our reconstructions show six centuries of generally warm NETP temperatures (1000–1586 CE), followed by a transition to cooler temperatures (1587–1887 CE for NETP and 1588–1930 CE for SETP). The transition from the Medieval Climate Anomaly to the Little Ice Age thus happened in the 1580s in NETP and SETP, which is about 150 years later than in larger-scale (e.g. Asia and the Northern Hemisphere) temperature reconstructions. We found that TP temperature variability, especially in SETP, was influenced by the Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation and that the twentieth century was the warmest on record in NETP and SETP. Our reconstructions and climate model simulations both show industrial-era warming trends, the onset of which happened earlier in NETP (1812 CE) compared to SETP (1887 CE) and other temperature reconstructions for Western China, East Asia, Asia, and the Northern Hemisphere. The early NETP onset of industrial-era warming can likely be explained by NETP’s faster warming rate and by local feedback factors (i.e., ice–snow cover-albedo). Comparisons between climate model simulations and our reconstructions reveal that cooler TP temperatures from 1600 to 1800 CE might be related to land-use and land-cover change.

Moisture delivery in California is largely regulated by the strength and position of the North Pacific jet stream (NPJ), winter high-altitude winds that influence regional hydroclimate and forest fire during the following warm season. We use climate model simulations and paleoclimate data to reconstruct winter NPJ characteristics back to 1571 CE to identify the influence of NPJ behavior on moisture and forest fire extremes in California before and during the more recent period of fire suppression. Maximum zonal NPJ velocity is lower and northward shifted and has a larger latitudinal spread during presuppression dry and high-fire extremes. Conversely, maximum zonal NPJ is higher and southward shifted, with narrower latitudinal spread during wet and low-fire extremes. These NPJ, precipitation, and fire associations hold across pre–20th-century socioecological fire regimes, including Native American burning, postcontact disruption and native population decline, and intensification of forest use during the later 19th century. Precipitation extremes and NPJ behavior remain linked in the 20th and 21st centuries, but fire extremes become uncoupled due to fire suppression after 1900. Simulated future conditions in California include more wet-season moisture as rain (and less as snow), a longer fire season, and higher temperatures, leading to drier fire-season conditions independent of 21st-century precipitation changes. Assuming continuation of current fire management practices, thermodynamic warming is expected to override the dynamical influence of the NPJ on climate–fire relationships controlling fire extremes in California. Recent widespread fires in California in association with wet extremes may be early evidence of this change.

Proxy evidence is necessary to place current temperature and hydroclimatic changes in a long-term context and to assess the full range of natural and anthropogenic climate forcings. Here, we presen ...

China is a key region for understanding fire activity and the drivers of its variability under strict fire suppression policies. Here, we present a detailed fire occurrence dataset for China, the Wildfire Atlas of China (WFAC; 2005–2018), based on continuous monitoring from multiple satellites and calibrated against field observations. We find that wildfires across China mostly occur in the winter season from January to April and those fire occurrences generally show a decreasing trend after reaching a peak in 2007. Most wildfires (84%) occur in subtropical China, with two distinct clusters in its southwestern and southeastern parts. In southeastern China, wildfires are mainly promoted by low precipitation and high diurnal temperature ranges, the combination of which dries out plant tissue and fuel. In southwestern China, wildfires are mainly promoted by warm conditions that enhance evaporation from litter and dormant plant tissues. We further find a fire occurrence dipole between southwestern and southeastern China that is modulated by the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)., Fire activity in China and its associations with climate are not well quantified at a local scale. Here, the authors present a detailed fire occurrence dataset for China and find a dipole fire pattern between southwestern and southeastern China that is modulated by the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

The jet stream configuration over the Atlantic Ocean and the European continent substantially affects climatic extremes in Western Eurasia by transporting heat and vorticity. However, how the Europe-Atlantic jet configuration varies and how it affects European climate on the long time-scales are still unclear. We compiled a network of tree-ring width, blue intensity, and maximum density chronologies from Europe to explore past variability in the summer Europe-Atlantic Jet stream and its influence on regional climate. By combining five regional chronologies, we were able to reconstruct July-August jet stream latitude (JSL) PC2 variability over the past millennium (978-2010 CE) for the Europe-Atlantic domain (30°W to 40°E). Our reconstruction explains 40% of summer JSL PC2 variability over the instrumental period (1948-2010 CE) with strong skill. Our millennial-long reconstruction shows that summer JSL is a relevant driver of the temperature, precipitation, and drought dipoles observed between Northwestern and Southern Europe. Positive summer JSL PC2 values (northward jet position) generally lead to a strengthening of the European summer climate dipole, while negative values (southward jet position) lead to a weak or insignificant dipole mode. Our summer JSL reconstruction shows large variability and a high occurrence rate of extremes over the 20th century, as well as 1200-1350 CE Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA). The high occurrence rate of summer JSL extremes corresponds to periods with increased number of climatic extremes. Our results suggest that the summer JSL contributes to the European climate dipole both in a long-term context and in its extremes. We also reveal that the occurrence rate of summer JSL extremes is double during the 20th century compared to other periods, especially for the negative extremes, which might be related to anthropogenic warming. Our results suggest a high occurrence rate of summer JSL extremes during the 20th century, leading to more climatic extremes in Europe, as well as a prevailing northward summer JSL position resulting in a weakening climatic dipole.

Tropical and subtropical ecosystems are primarily responsible for the large inter-annual variability (IAV) in the global carbon land sink. The response of tropical vegetation productivity to climatic variation likely drives this IAV, but the climate sensitivity of key productivity components are poorly understood. Tree-ring analysis can help fill this knowledge gap by estimating IAV in woody biomass growth, the major carbon accumulation process in tropical vegetation. Here, we evaluate the climate responses of woody biomass growth throughout the global tropics. Using an unprecedented compilation of tropical tree-ring data, we test hypotheses that (1) precipitation (P) and maximum temperature (Tmax) have opposite and additive effects on annual tree growth, (2) these climate responses amplify with increasing aridity and (3) wet-season climate is a more important driver of growth than dry-season climate. We established a network of 347 tree-ring width chronologies compiled from (sub-)tropical latitudes, representing 99 tree species on five continents and obtained from contributors (n=112) and the International Tree-Ring Data Bank (ITRDB; n=235). Our network is climatologically representative for 66% of the pantropical land area with woody vegetation. To test hypotheses we re-developed standardized ring-width index (RWI) chronologies and assessed climate responses using SOM cluster analysis (monthly P and Tmax) and multiple regression analysis (seasonal P and Tmax). Our results were consistent with hypothesis 1: effects of monthly or seasonal P and Tmax on tree growth were indeed additive and opposite, suggesting water availability to be the primary driver of tropical tree growth. In accordance with hypothesis 2, these climate responses were stronger at sites with lower mean annual precipitation or a larger annual water deficit. However, our results contrast those expected under hypothesis 3. Three of the four clusters show a dominant role of dry-season climate on annual tree growth and regression analyses confirmed this strong dry-season role. The strong dry-season effect on tropical tree growth seemingly contrasts the general notion that tropical vegetation productivity peaks during the wet season but is consistent with studies showing that climatologically benign dry seasons increase reserve storage and xylem growth. We posit that dry-season climate constrains the magnitude of woody biomass growth that takes place during the following wet season, and thus contributes to IAV in tree growth. By providing field-based insights on climate sensitivity of tropical vegetation productivity, our study contributes to the major task in Earth system science of quantifying, understanding, and predicting the IAV of the carbon land sink.

European forests stock 30% of the total carbon stored in the biomass of temperate forests globally. As essential components of the biosphere, these forests are highly influenced by land–atmosphere interactions and climate extremes that may alter carbon uptake and storage. In order to identify broad patterns of ecosystem responses to climate, changes in European forest productivity have been linked to the strength and phase (i.e., positive or negative) of large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns. However, a robust characterization of the physical coupling between ocean-atmosphere variability and terrestrial ecosystem productivity requires a more tangible and physically measurable representation of the atmospheric state. We propose that the latitudinal position of the jet-stream in the European-Atlantic sector (JSL) is such a measure and allows directly linking anomalies in terrestrial carbon fluxes with climate extremes. Importantly, JSL integrates not only co-variability between multiple climate parameters, but also the underlying atmospheric configuration.In this study, we combine a network of 344 tree-ring width (TRW) chronologies, simulated ecosystem carbon uptake (i.e., gross primary production; GPP) from Dynamic Global Vegetation Models and atmospheric reanalysis data to characterize the spatiotemporal connection between forest productivity at the earth surface and summer JSL variability in the upper troposphere. The focus on extremes in both the atmospheric driver (JSL) and the ecosystem response (TRW, GPP) allows us to diagnose the synoptic-scale configuration and climatic fluctuations that trigger the most substantial carbon anomalies across temperate forests in Europe.The impact of summer JSL migrations on the productivity of European forests is not uniform across the continent and shows a northwest-southeast polarity. Regional tree growth and GPP dipoles across Europe, particularly in extreme years, are tightly coupled to the position of the JSL and the occurrence of persistent and stationary weather patterns connected to persistent and strong anticyclonic anomalies (i.e., atmospheric blocking events). Productivity, and particularly forest growth, are the most impacted by changes in summer JSL over the continent, where atmospheric blocking frequency is the highest during summer. We observed synchronized changes in growth and GPP during summer JSL extremes, denoting common climatic constraints to both processes.Our study emphasizes that JSL variability can trigger regional changes of up to 30% and 50% during extreme years in forest carbon uptake and growth of European forests, respectively. More importantly, these extremes on productivity are not uniform across Europe resulting in a continental productivity imbalance. Current and future net effect on continental forest productivity may depend on differences in forest resilience, forest density and rate of forest productivity across the continent.

Great Basin Bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) is known for its longevity. The longest continuous tree-ring width chronology covers more than 9000 years. Tree-ring width of upper treeline bristlecone pine trees is influenced by summer temperature variability at decadal to centennial scales, but to infer a temperature signal on interannual scales, Maximum Latewood Density (MXD) is a better proxy. Here, we present a preliminary MXD chronology to investigate the temperature signal in upper treeline and lower elevation bristlecone pines. MXD was measured with an X-ray Computed Tomography toolchain in 24 dated cores, with the oldest sample dating back to 776 CE. Ring and fibre angles were corrected and two MXD chronologies for different elevations were developed, which will be used to study climate-growth relationships and the effect of elevation on them. Future scanning will allow constructing a 5000+ year-long MXD chronology from upper treeline sites, which will provide an annual-resolution North American temperature record covering the mid-to-late Holocene.

On behalf of the journal, AGU, and the scientific community, the editors would like to sincerely thank those who reviewed the manuscripts for Geophysical Research Letters in 2020. The hours reading and commenting on manuscripts not only improve the manuscripts but also increase the scientific rigor of future research in the field. We particularly appreciate the timely reviews in light of the demands imposed by the rapid review process at Geophysical Research Letters. The COVID pandemic imposed additional stresses on the review process, as many reviewers had to juggle increased family commitments, hours of online meetings, remote work and instruction, lack of physical access to library resources, and other hardships to maintain the quality and timeliness of their reviews. Although we witnessed an increase in the number of submissions, the average number of days to complete a review increased by less than one day!! That says a lot about the diligence of our reviewers. We deeply appreciate their contributions in these challenging times. With the advent of AGU's data policy, many reviewers have also helped immensely to evaluate the accessibility and availability of data, and many have provided insightful comments that helped to improve the data presentation and quality. We greatly appreciate the assistance of the reviewers in advancing open science, which is a key objective of AGU's data policy. Individuals in italics provided three or more reviews for Geophysical Research Letters during the year. In total, 5,177 referees contributed to 8,786 individual reviews. Thank you again. We look forward to the coming year of exciting advances in the field and communicating those advances to our community and to the broader public.

Forests in the Mediterranean basin frequently experience fires due to both anthropogenic and natural causes. There are concerns that the fire season will prolong in the Mediterranean basin, the fire frequency will increase with ongoing climate change, moreover, the fire regimes will shift from surface fires to local crown fires. Here, we aim to improve our understanding of the fire regime components of black pine forests in Turkey by 1) reconstructing a high-resolution fire chronology based on tree rings, 2) revealing the seasonality of fires, 3) investigating the relationship between fire and climate, and 4) comparing our reconstruction results with documentary data from forest management units. We collected 62 fire-scarred trees from three sites in Kutahya and developed a 368 year-long (1652–2019) composite fire chronology using dendrochronological methods. We found that at two sites major fire years coincided with dry years. Two major fire years (1853 and 1879) were common to all sites and two additional fire years (1822 and 1894) were found at two sites. Our results show a sharp decline in fire frequency after the beginning of the 20th century at all sites that can be attributed to increased fire suppression efforts and forest management activities in the 20th century. Our results suggest that the spread of fires has been actively suppressed since the first forest protection law in Turkey. Yet, tree-ring based and documentary data corroboration shows that seasonality did not change over the past +350 years.

Significance The variability of the Asian summer monsoon (ASM) is important for the functioning of ecological and societal systems at regional to continental scales, but the long-term evolution and interannual variability of this system is not well understood. Here, we present a stable isotope–based reconstruction of ASM variability covering 4680 BCE to 2011 CE. Superimposed on a gradual drying trend, a rapid drop in mean annual precipitation (>40%) toward persistently drier conditions occurred in ∼1675 BCE. This megadrought caused regional forest deterioration and enhanced aeolian activity affecting Chinese ecosystems. We argue that this abrupt aridification starting ∼2000 BCE triggered waves of human migration and societal transformation in northern China, which contributed to the alteration of spatial pattern of ancient civilizations., Asian summer monsoon (ASM) variability and its long-term ecological and societal impacts extending back to Neolithic times are poorly understood due to a lack of high-resolution climate proxy data. Here, we present a precisely dated and well-calibrated tree-ring stable isotope chronology from the Tibetan Plateau with 1- to 5-y resolution that reflects high- to low-frequency ASM variability from 4680 BCE to 2011 CE. Superimposed on a persistent drying trend since the mid-Holocene, a rapid decrease in moisture availability between ∼2000 and ∼1500 BCE caused a dry hydroclimatic regime from ∼1675 to ∼1185 BCE, with mean precipitation estimated at 42 ± 4% and 5 ± 2% lower than during the mid-Holocene and the instrumental period, respectively. This second-millennium–BCE megadrought marks the mid-to late Holocene transition, during which regional forests declined and enhanced aeolian activity affected northern Chinese ecosystems. We argue that this abrupt aridification starting ∼2000 BCE contributed to the shift of Neolithic cultures in northern China and likely triggered human migration and societal transformation.

On behalf of the journal, AGU, and the scientific community, the editors would like to sincerely thank those who reviewed the manuscripts for Geophysical Research Letters in 2019. The hours reading and commenting on manuscripts not only improve the manuscripts but also increase the scientific rigor of future research in the field. We particularly appreciate the timely reviews in light of the demands imposed by the rapid review process at Geophysical Research Letters. With the revival of the “major revisions” decisions, we appreciate the reviewers' efforts on multiple versions of some manuscripts. With the advent of AGU's data policy, many reviewers have helped immensely to evaluate the accessibility and availability of data associated with the papers they have reviewed, and many have provided insightful comments that helped to improve the data presentation and quality. We greatly appreciate the assistance of the reviewers in advancing open science, which is a key objective of AGU's data policy. Many of those listed below went beyond and reviewed three or more manuscripts for our journal, and those are indicated in italics.

Since the 1980s, the subtropical jet stream has generally moved poleward, but its behavior varies strongly by region and season. Here we examine the interannual variability and trends in the latitu...

Tropical forests are a crucial component of the global carbon cycle and importantly contribute to the global carbon land sink. Stem growth of tropical trees is a key component of carbon dynamics in tropical forests, but our understanding of how this is driven by climatic variation is poor. Such understanding is needed for predictive vegetation modelling of climate change effects.Here, we help to fill this knowledge gap by conducting a meta-analysis of published tropical tree-ring width chronologies. We compiled >350 tropical chronologies (30°N - 30°S) from all tropical climate zones. We used this data set to explore i) common patterns in the tree-growth responses to monthly rainfall and temperature (Tmax) patterns (cluster analysis), ii) the relative importance of temperature and rainfall in determining tropical tree growth (glm), iii) how these climatic drivers shift along gradients of temperature and precipitation.Our cluster analysis revealed 6-8 primary types of responses to monthly climate variables. These clusters are associated with mean climate, elevation, or geographic location. The seasonality of growth responses to temperature and rainfall differed clearly among clusters, but the signs of responses were consistent: higher Tmax reduces growth, more precipitation increases growth. Multiple regression analyses of growth responses to seasonal climate further confirmed the negative effects of temperature and positive effects of rainfall. Rainfall during the dry season had the strongest relative importance. Finally, we found that seasonal drivers of tropical tree growth are modified by mean climate. In drier regions, growth sensitivity to temperature increases; in warmer regions, growth sensitivity to rainfall increases. The latter may imply that global warming leads to stronger drought effects on tree growth and possibly enhances mortality risks of tropical trees.Our meta-analysis shows that tree-ring studies help to improve understanding of climate-driven carbon dynamics in tropical forests. Insights from this study can be used to benchmark global vegetation modelling and to better understand responses of tropical tree species to climate change.

Great Basin Bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) is known for its trees that attain old age. The longest chronology is more than 9000 years long, and the temperature-sensitive upper treeline chronology extends back to 5000 years. The ring width pattern of upper treeline bristlecone pine trees are strongly influenced by temperature variability at decadal to centennial scales. To infer a climate signal on annual scales, MXD is shown to be a better temperature proxy. Here, we present a preliminary Maximum Latewood Density (MXD) chronology of bristlecone pine to investigate the temperature signal in upper treeline and below. Maximum latewood density (MXD) from 24 dated cores (from various sites ranging from the upper treeline and below, oldest sample dates back to 776 AD) was determined with an X-ray CT toolchain. Ring and fibre angles were corrected and a MXD chronology was constructed. The resulting MXD chronology will be correlated to summer temperature. Future scanning will allow constructing a + 5000 year MXD chronology and could reveal the cooling effect of volcanic eruptions through this period.

Dynamically-driven extreme weather events have large ecological, social and economic consequences including large tree-growth reductions and forest mortality. These events are likely to become globally more frequent and intense in the near future with increased anthropogenic forcing and associated changes in couple atmosphere-ocean circulation. The European continent is under the control of different atmospheric circulation patterns leading to geographical climatic gradients caused by their eventual position and strength, being the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the East Atlantic Pattern (EA) the main modes of North Atlantic climate variability (Barnston and Levezey 1987; Folland et al. 2009). Both, NAO and EA reflect jet stream changes as a consequence of variations in the eddy forcing, being the North Atlantic Jet (NAJ) the pattern connecting the large-scale atmospheric variability over the North Atlantic basin (Woollings, Hannachi, and Hoskins 2010). Thus, the identification and characterization of the links between forest productivity and the precursors of large-scale dynamics inducing extreme events may boost our capacity of assessing their predictability and enhancing forecasting skills.Here, we scale forest response to climate to higher atmospheric levels by establishing the connection between extreme positive and negative anomalies in productivity of European forests to the latitudinal position of the NAJ. For that, we use a network of 344 European beech tree-ring chronologies extending from the Iberian Peninsula to the Carpathians and from Greece to northern UK.Our results show a geographical gradient on tree growth across Europe explained either by the asymmetric forest response to homogeneous summer climate over Europe or to a distinct summer climate dipole leading to diverging climatic conditions in northeaster and southwestern Europe. In both cases, the continental-scale European-beech growth patterns are linked to the NAJ latitudinal position and its determinant influence on summer climate over Europe. The projected increase in the frequency of northward migrations of the NAJ for the next century may enhance the differences in forest productivity across Europe by inducing subcontinental-wide beech forest growth reduction.Barnston, Anthony Gaston, and Robert E. Levezey. 1987. "Classification, seasonality and persistence of low-frequency atmospheric circulation patterns" Mon. Weather Rev. 115: 1083-1126.Folland, Chris K, Jeff Knight, Hans W Linderholm, David Fereday, Sarah Ineson, and James W Hurrell. 2009. “The Summer North Atlantic Oscillation: Past, Present, and Future.” Journal of Climate 22 (5): 1082–1103. https://doi.org/10.1175/2008JCLI2459.1.Woollings, Tim, Abdel Hannachi, and Brian Hoskins. 2010. “Variability of the North Atlantic Eddy-Driven Jet Stream.” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 136 (649): 856–68. https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.625.

A recent increase in mid-latitude extreme weather events has been linked to anomalies in the position, strength, and waviness of the Northern Hemisphere polar jet stream. The latitudinal position of the North Atlantic Jet (NAJ) in particular drives climatic extremes over Europe, by controlling the location of the Atlantic storm track and by influencing the occurrence and duration of atmospheric blocking. To put recent NAJ trends in a historical perspective and to investigate non-linear relationships between jet stream position, mid-latitude extreme weather events, and anthropogenic climate change, long-term records of NAJ variability are needed. Here, we combine two tree-ring based summer temperature reconstructions from Scotland and from the Balkan Peninsula to reconstruct inter-annual variability in the latitudinal position of the summer NAJ back to 1200 CE. We find that over the past centuries, a northward summer NAJ position has resulted in heatwaves in northwestern Europe, whereas a southward position has promoted wildfires in southeastern Europe and floods in northwestern Europe. The great famine of 1315-1317 in northwestern Europe, for instance, was associated with prolonged flooding and cold summers that resulted in failed grain harvest and were related to a southern NAJ position. We further find an unprecedented increase in NAJ anomalies since the 1960s, which supports more sinuous jet stream patterns and quasi-resonant amplification as potential dynamic pathways for Arctic warming to influence midlatitude weather.

High-resolution annual precipitation and temperature proxies are largely lacking in Southern Africa, partly due to the scarcely available tree species that are suitable for dendrochronology. Clanwilliam cedar (Widdringtonia cedarbergensis) from Cape Province, South Africa, is a long-lived conifer with distinct tree rings and thus a strong dendroclimatic potential. However, the climatic signal in its tree-ring width (TRW) is weak and other tree-ring parameters such as density need to be explored to extract climatic information from this proxy. Here we investigate the climatic signal of density parameters in 17 Clanwilliam cedar samples (9 trees) collected in 1978 (Dunwiddie & LaMarche, 1980). We use a non-destructive X-ray Computed Tomography facility to develop minimum density (MIND) and maximum density (MXD) chronologies from 1900 until 1977. EPS for both density series exceeded 0.85. For the period 1930-1977 (reliable instrumental records), MIND correlates negatively with early-growing season precipitation (Oct-Nov), whereas MXD correlates negatively with end-of-season (March) temperature. The spatial correlation between MIND and spring precipitation spans the winter rainfall zone of South Africa. Clanwilliam cedar can live to be 356 years old and the current TRW chronology extends to 1564 CE. Full-length density chronologies for this long-lived species could provide a precipitation reconstruction for southern Africa, a region where historical climate observations are limited and where societal vulnerability to future climate change is high.References:Dunwiddie, P. W., & LaMarche, V. C. (1980). A climatically responsive tree-ring record from Widdringtonia cedarbergensis, Cape Province, South Africa. Nature, 286(5775), 796–797.

Tree rings are a natural archive containing valuable information about environmental changes. Among the most sensitive ecosystems to such changes are high-mountain forests. Tree-ring series from such locations are exceptionally valuable both for climate reconstructions and for studying the effects of climate changes on forest ecosystems. The objective of our study is to present new long tree-ring width chronologies of Pinus peuce Griseb. from several locations at Pirin Mountains in southwestern Bulgaria, to explore their correlation with monthly temperatures and precipitation in the research area and to assess their potential for climate reconstruction. We built three long-term index chronologies for the radial increment of P. peuce from treeline locations in the study region. The longest chronology spans 675 years. We studied the impact of monthly air temperature and precipitation on its growth for the past 86 years using multiple regression analysis. Our analysis shows that P. peuce growth is positively influenced by high temperatures at the end of the previous growing season, especially at the two sites in Banderitsa valley until the middle of the 1970s, and negatively affected by cold winters. In some of the sample plots its growth was also positively correlated with high summer temperatures. However, even at these high altitudes in some of the locations on steep slopes P. peuce showed signs of negative impact of drought during the hottest summer months (especially in August). Our chronologies contribute to the paleoclimatic record for southwestern Bulgaria, which could provide baseline information about past climate variability and improve our understanding of current and future environmental changes.