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Science 5 March 1993:
Vol. 259. no. 5100, pp. 1433 - 1436
DOI: 10.1126/science.259.5100.1433
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Articles

A 2000-Year Tree Ring Record of Annual Temperatures in the Sierra Nevada Mountains

Louis A. Scuderi 1

1 Department of Geography, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215

Tree ring data have been used to reconstruct the mean late-season (June through January) temperature at a timberline site in the Sierra Nevada, California, for each of the past 2000 years. Long-term trends in the temperature reconstruction are indicative of a 125-year periodicity that may be linked to solar activity as reflected in radiocarbon and auroral records. The results indicate that both the warm intervals during the Medieval Warm Epoch (simA.D. 800 to 1200) and the cold intervals during the Little Ice Age (simA.D. 1200 to 1900) are closely associated with the 125-year period. Significant changes in the phase of the 125-year temperature variation occur at the onset and termination of the most recent radiocarbon triplet and may indicate chaotic solar behavior.

Submitted on September 28, 1992
Accepted on December 15, 1992


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