Extraction of the climatic signal for moisture from tree-ring chronologies of Altai-Sayan mountain forest-steppes.

Studies in Central Asia (Altai-Sayan region, northwest and central Mongolia) have shown that trees growing in arid conditions of mountain forest-steppes have a mixed and unstable climatic response. It is obvious that this nature of the climatic response of trees prevents the use of tree-ring chronologies for climate reconstruction. In this connection, it is necessary to separate the climatic signal of tree-ring chronologies, i.e., extract the signal for moisture. This paper proposes a method for separating the climatic signal of tree-ring chronologies of mountain forest-steppes, and reports estimates of its reliability by two independent methods. Analysis of the chronologies obtained after separation of the signal, based on meteorological and hydrological data, has shown that these chronologies can be used for climate reconstructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]