While researching for one of WUWT’s previous posts by Caleb Shaw, which is a must read essay on the simple things that can explain tree ring records to scientists that have never actually touched the tree or understood its local growth environment, I came across this photo of two larch trees in the Kotuykan river area of Siberia, not far from the Yamal peninsula. The photographer stated that an accompanying scientist who is familiar with the region named the two trees “Tyranny and Freedom” because of the differing situations they had been exposed to.
The question: which of the two trees below is the oldest?
The researchers write:
Forest ecologist Slava Kharuk called this a picture of tyranny and freedom. The trees are growing at the top of a mountain in the Siberian Traps. The climate at the location is near the limit of the coldest temperatures larch trees can tolerate. The smaller of the two trees in the foreground is many centuries older than the bigger tree.
Dr. Kharuk describes the tree on the right as living under the tyranny of colder climates of the past. It grew slowly: its form is twisted, its needles are sparse, the diameter is small, and it is not very tall. The younger tree has grown, he says, under the freedom of recent, milder climates. It is shooting up tall, straight, and full. It grows a relatively large amount each year, which results in a larger trunk diameter. (Photograph by Jon Ranson.)
In the cold Siberian climate, trees reproduce slowly. These larch cones document three years of growth. The lightest, reddish cones in the foreground are this year’s cones, which are forming and have not yet released their seeds. The medium-brown cones are from last year’s growth. The darkest brown cones are fully open and spent, yet still hang tenaciously on the tree. (Photograph by Jon Ranson.)
The harsh climate of Siberia is a challenging one for Larch trees. The photo shows the fates of several trees. A tree without bark or branches leans across the center of the photo. This tree died centuries ago, but the frigid climate has kept it from decaying. In the foreground, a tree that broke at the trunk and toppled managed to survive: a side branch grew into a vigorous new tree. In front and to the right of the “reborn” tree is a small dead tree that still has branches and bark. It is an ancient tree that died recently. In its last years, it put energy into making seed. Pinecones from the previous two years still cling to its branches. (Photograph by Jon Ranson.)
Source: NASA Earth Observatory, Siberia 2008 Kotuykan River Expedition
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While the notion of temperature differences being the driver for the trees “Tyranny and Freedom” might be valid:
Dr. Kharuk describes the tree on the right as living under the tyranny of colder climates of the past. It grew slowly: its form is twisted, its needles are sparse, the diameter is small, and it is not very tall. The younger tree has grown, he says, under the freedom of recent, milder climates.
Without looking at all of the growth factors, one can’t be certain what is the true reason for growth difference. One tree might have better access to water or more nutrients available to it. We just don’t know, anything pinning a cause without a thorough investigation of the tree health and soil is simply speculation.
The idea posed by Caleb Shaw in this previous post seems to be well illustrated by these photos:
The bristlecone records seemed a lousy proxy, because at the altitude where they grow it is below freezing nearly every night, and daytime temperatures are only above freezing for something like 10% of the year. They live on the borderline of existence, for trees, because trees go dormant when water freezes. (As soon as it drops below freezing the sap stops dripping into the sugar maple buckets.) Therefore the bristlecone pines were dormant 90% of all days and 99% of all nights, in a sense failing to collect temperature data all that time, yet they were supposedly a very important proxy for the entire planet.
So in the case of larch trees in Siberia, how much of the time are they recording temperature? Without the proper metadata from Briffa telling us where these trees were situated, figuring out the response of trees like the now famous YAD06 is a tall order. Even with the metadata, when you find such wide variations in tree response growing next to one another, it isn’t much help. The only thing that can help is a large sample size so that individual responses like what we see in the core, YAD061, are statistically minimized in total impact.
It is my understanding that trees changing depends on three factors:
1. length of day
2. amount of water available
3. nighttime low temperatures
Michigan has been experiencing below normal temperatures. Looking at temperatures for Lansing, low temperatures have been mostly above “average” for most of the past several weeks (but highs have been below normal). A notable exception was 31 degrees on October 1. Having a look in a more rural location (Ithaca, Mich.) shows a temperature of 28F that night. That could have been cold enough to trigger the process of shutting things down for the winter.
Precipitation was a little below normal in September but not horribly dry with long periods of cloudy drizzly days.
I would guess it to be due to that one very cold night getting the process started.
I see now that even if we measured every ring of every tree on the planet we could not get any useful information as far as climate is concerned… even withing a forest, there are too many local factors that will affect the growth of a tree. The differences between forests in the whole world are even bigger. The study of tree rings related to past climate is totally useless and meaningless.
gtrip (21:08:49) :
Did a creative mind under Russian Communism write that?
Anything can be a Rorschach Test. It doesn’t just have to be an ink blot. Trees have been a good one this week.
Here is a link to the good doctor’s co-authored 1998 study of larch trees in the area seen where it is concluded that, being water ineffcient, nitrogen availability at the root zone is key to growth, all things being equal:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/hnean77c43qutc3p/
Caleb sums it up:
“” yet they were supposedly a very important proxy for the entire planet.””
One tree defines the temperature of the entire planet!
In Greece there exist olive groves with very ancient trees, thousands of years old. There is a tree in Athens called “Plato’s olive tree” because it is in the area where Plato’s academy was.
Anecdotal observation:
Sometimes you see one old tree in the grove growing twisted in a helical pattern. My father said that when dug up, the roots have the opposite helicity: the tree is trying to grow straight because the root found rock underneath and started twisting around it: conservation of angular momentum, I thought as a physicist :).
so the stunted and turning tree might also have rock under it?
REPLY: which would mean less available soil and nutrients if mostly rock underneath -A
“Gene Nemetz (20:53:47) :
p.s. have you seen the fall colors in Michigan? One of the most beautiful things in the world!”
I lived there for nearly 4 decades. Some of the most wonderful sketches I’ve made were while on galavants to northern Michigan.
Do you suppose that the MSU prof maybe doesn’t get outside enough? Maybe he should play more in the dirt like the rest of us gardeners. There is certainly more to a plant than what you find in a lab 😉
When you have only two trees to compare it shouldn’t be “The question: which of the two trees below is the oldest?” but “The question: which of the two trees below is older?” or “The question: which of the two trees below is the elder?”
The loblolly pine I planted in Texas a decade ago are now about 30 feet tall. With fast growing pine, you can guess the age by looking at the gaps between the growth nodes. That is, each spring, the top tip of the main trunk puts out a new set of horizontal branches.
crosspatch (21:24:47) :
It is my understanding that trees changing…
Last i saw, you aren’t a tree. I would think that a living thing with a life span into the hundreds of years would know how to deal with climate better than you would.
You said: Precipitation was a little below normal in September but not horribly dry with long periods of cloudy drizzly days.
So I am assuming that you actually live in Michigan. Michigan is a strange land mass. Surrounded by deep fresh water. Climate should be looked at with that in mind. I notice that NOAA doesn’t monitor the Great Lake’s temperatures. I wonder why. Could it be because it gives a more true thermometer to how the sun affects the earths temps? The weatherman love to talk about lake effect snows, but they are only available if the summer heated the lakes. If the lakes freeze over, there will no lake effect snowfall. And no ground moisture absorbtion.
The low cloud mist that crosspatch talks about is very common in Michigan. It is also the cloud types caused by low solar activity that opens up our planet to galactical influences. How does one distinguish the two?????
I would have loved to have enjoyed this past Michigan summer…it had to have been great. As a tourist of course, not as a farmer. The growing season has shortened, the economy is going into the pits of hell, but the Warmist continue to tell us that heat is bad.
Gene Nemetz (21:33:15) :
gtrip (21:08:49) :
Did a creative mind under Russian Communism write that?
Nope. Just some Canadian punks that had a Rock and Roll band. Kind of amazing were sense can come from nowadays eh?
Deborah (19:10:03) :
Speaking of trees i couldn’t help but laugh at this mystified expert :
“Maple trees in mid-Michigan have begun turning colors about three weeks early, said Bert Cregg, professor of horticulture and forestry at Michigan State University. But no one is “quite sure what’s going on yet” with the trees, he says. Possible causes could include the accumulation of stress from previous dry years or some type of fungus or boring pest, Cregg said.”
Article here: http://www.freep.com/article/20090929/NEWS05/909290330/1322/Maple-trees-welcome-fall-3-weeks-early
I’m no expert but…maybe it’s just getting colder earlier than it has in recent years?
I just had to laugh.
The evidence doesn’t fit the dominant paradigm/narrative – so he can’t explain it, or interpret it in terms relevant to the evidence.
I.e. he can’t believe his lying eyes.
Evidence!!! Evidence!!!! We don’t need no stinken Evidence.
The cold winter we are about to see will be blamed on Global Warming. Mark his words!
gtrip & Gene N “There is unrest in the forest”
http://hearth.com/econtent/index.php/articles/unrest_in_the_forest_two_poems
Note the above has 2 poems listed; first is the original.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Peart
I have spent some time growing Bonsais and the tree on the right resembles a natural Bonsai. What this takes is a constraining of the root structure. In the cultivated Bonsai this is achieved by restricting the root growth (cutting the roots) and then limiting the space in which the roots can grow by restricting the size of the pot. Bonsais also occur naturally and the features of naturally occurring Bonsais is that the tree has germinated in a basin shaped rock formation where the roots are restricted from free growth. This also restricts both the nutrients and the water the tree has available to grow. It has little if anything to do with atmospheric temperatures and much more to do with physical restriction of the roots.
My first inclination is that cloudiness associated with cosmic ray activity probably wouldn’t be localized to central Michigan. There should be a general, global increase in such clouds. I haven’t seen anything yet reported on general global cloud cover or Earth albedo recently so I can’t say either way.
And no, I live in California and was looking at weather records for the area over the past several weeks.
Anyone who’s spent time at higher elevations – of wind whipped ridges, blankets of snow, and a short growing season; and admiring the twisted and contorted conifer’s that eke out survival in those, fully understands you can have a tree that will be 150′ tall with a massive trunk in generous conditions, but only 15′ tall and *very* twisted under harsh conditions, despite being five centuries older.
I didn’t need the caption to tell me which was older – it was quite clear just by looking at them.
Deborah (19:10:03) :
Speaking of trees i couldn’t help but laugh at this mystified expert :
“Maple trees in mid-Michigan have begun turning colors about three weeks early, said Bert Cregg, professor of horticulture and forestry at Michigan State University. But no one is “quite sure what’s going on yet” with the trees, he says. Possible causes could include the accumulation of stress from previous dry years or some type of fungus or boring pest, Cregg said.”
Article here: http://www.freep.com/article/20090929/NEWS05/909290330/1322/Maple-trees-welcome-fall-3-weeks-early
I’m no expert but…maybe it’s just getting colder earlier than it has in recent years?
I just had to laugh.
~~~~
Last year, we had fall color and the tree’s were bare by the middle of Novemeber. Short of planting trees that will easily give color up, we do NOT have fall color. Generally, they to straight to brown, die, and fall off the tree – usually by December. There was recently a local article published about a woman expressing concern her Norwegian draft-type horses started getting their winter coats weeks earlier than normal. She even contacted her vet to examine them thinking they were ill. She contacted owners in the area with the same breed and learned their horses were also getting their winter coats weeks earlier than normal. Animals don’t subscribe to AGW – perhaps they know something and are worth watching. 😉
“Tyranny” most likely started life as a seedling deep in a rock crevice, probably where just enough detrius and moisture collected to allow it to sprout. Its early growth was restricted by the rock until its roots grew thick enough to crack it. Once that happened, “Tyranny” received some additional moisture and nutrients, allowing it to grow a bit more, and eventually its roots weakened the rock and its trunk widened enough to split the rock entirely.
Rationale:
1. “Tyranny’s” trunk is growing at an angle, which means its early growth was physically restricted, and
2. there’s a honking big chunk of rock leaning against the base of the trunk.
Buuuuuuut, I could be wrong.
I can’t believe no one has said it yet:
“How to recognise trees from quite a long way away.
Number 1, the larch… the larch”
crosspatch (22:49:57) : no, I live in California and was looking at weather records for the area over the past several weeks.
Hmmmm. Weather/climate from afar eh? Michigan is a perfect example of where the”weather” is going. Lake effect warming is much larger than oceanic warming….locally I mean. Lake Superior is large, deep, and cold. Why not monitor that? I have tried doing so but only get fishing reports….go figure, people just living.
Why Michigan? Why Lake Michigan, and Lake Huron, and Lake Superior? Because of Glaciers!!!! Big, Big Glaciers. Push, pull, push pull, push, pull…..that is what glaciers do. There is a picture of some glacier receding and they make I look like the earth is doomed. But it left behind a lake, not as big bu just the same as the Great Lakes.
I thought they were known as witness trees. Didn’t Robert Frost write a poem about one?
Tom Hall (20:38:31) :
Maybe the one tree just has a parasite of some kind.
The Pine Beetle and certain species of bee are parasitic to some trees.
Phillip Bratby (22:10:10) :
When you have only two trees to compare it shouldn’t be “The question: which of the two trees below is the oldest?” but … “The question: which of the two trees below is the elder?”
Answer: Neither. They are both larch!