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.
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RE:
The Russian penchant for metaphor is fascinating, especially with regard to sweeping social movement.
Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago titles his second chapter “A History of Our Sewage Disposal System”, about the sweeping purges to forced labor and prison camps in the North. Trying to recall something of the landscapes he refers to (there may have been more detail in One Day in the Life…), I ended up slogging back through large parts of the largely internal, claustrophobic story of his imprisonment and his impressions of the catastrophic waste of human life, flushed away to Siberia.
I have to admit that Michael stumped me, since I don’t know what “long lines of cocaine” look like.
I’ve been thinking. If these examples of Siberian Larch are at the very border of its range, then an especially severe winter would put them “across the border,” and perhaps kill the trees. However what would be more likely to happen would be that the top three quarters of the tree would be killed by the cold, while the lower quarter would be protected by deep snow and survive. (I’ve seen this happen to many southern plants which people attempt to grow north of their range, in New Hampshire.)
If you look at the older tree “Tyranny” you’ll note the trunk forks about a quarter of the way up, as if the top of the tree was killed at some point, and it had to start growing new leader-shoots from the surviving lower branches.
What happened to the dead top of the tree? I’m just guessing, but it might be that piece of dead wood laying at the foot of the younger tree “Freedom.”
In other words, the same thing could happen to “Freedom,” if this coming winter was especially cold. The top would be dead, and it would have to start new “leader-shoots” from the lower branches. In a couple hundred years it might look very much like “Tyranny.”
Just an idea.
Hmm. Looks like poor, rocky soil from here as opposed to an area cleared by logging. The turf looks frost and / or animal damaged, although I’d have to look more closely to be sure and the photo isn’t high enough definition to tell.
One tree grew in the “little iceage” and one grew in the current warm period, doesnt seem to contraversial!
It merely demonstrates it was colder a few hundred years ago and says nothing about longer timescales, no one argues it hasnt warmed since them a little.
Interesting though that the tree on the right has not burst into life with the warmer climate that helps the other? Is there sometthing else limiting its growth, is it in a patch of rocky soil restricting its root mass? Has the other tree simply not been alive long enough yet to learn its lesson, daring to grow tall and bushy in such an area!
Bill Tuttle (03:11:37) :
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Michael (20:32:35) :
I notice here in SW Florida on random days, planes leaving what looks like long lines of cocaine behind them in all kinds of criss cross patterns which then fan out to ruin what would have been a beautiful sunny day. Surely there cannot be that much airline passenger traffic over our area, we are a 700 mile long peninsula. What then could be the possible cause of all this? We sell Sun here in south Florida, but there really is not that much to sell anymore due to this problem.
——————–
Those are vapor trails, Michael — they’re composed of minute ice crystals formed when an aircraft’s engine exhaust (which is *hot*) undergoes rapid cooling at altitude. Water vapor in the exhaust plume is condensed, then frozen.
———————
Not just from the water vapor in the exhaust. For contrails to form the Relative Humidity in the layer of air must be above 86%. Usually at that high humidity clouds will already have formed. However if there are not enough hygroscopic nuclei (pure air so to speak) no clouds will form. The humidity can even get above 100% if the air is pure enough (it’s called super-saturated air). All you need to form contrails at that point is the addition of nuclei. (of course the water vapor in the exhausts helps also).
My point is that the moisture is already there to form the clouds, all it needs it something to get it started. I have watched the contrail from one plane start the process until cirrus covered the entire sky.
Caleb (10:58:13) :
I think you may have hit the nail on the head. If you or someone could produce some pictures to back this up, I’d love to see them.
Does Briffa do analysis across samples or the differential ring thickness analysis on each sample independently? If it’s the former, then the data is just random nonsense. If it’s the latter, as I expect it is, then the data is based on each individual tree’s growth patterns. It doesn’t matter, then, what the orientation of the tree is or the mix of nutrients it happens to be feeding on, as long as its conditions are relatively uniform except for the one Briffa is trying to proxy — the ambient temperature.
In the case of the 2 trees in the photo, it doesn’t matter what they look like. The growth rates with in their own ring sets should show fairly similar differentials, where a ring from year X is, for example, 50% thicker than the ring from year X-1, correcting for the rings distortion with age and growth.
So it isn’t a particularly relevant or fair example.
Michael I (22:49:39) :
What an absurd level of prejudice Dr. Kharuk shows in attributing this common juxtaposition! The restricted root system Michael suggests is the first and most obvious explanation, but it will not get you published and more research grants!
Gene Nemetz (21:33:15) :
“gtrip (21:08:49) :”
“Did a creative mind under Russian Communism write that?”
The song “The Trees” … by my favorite group Rush
It is cocaine trails in the sky that Michael sees. This is why so many people seem out of “it” on certain days. Also pilots make so much money they just have to give some of their coke to less fortunate people.
Good Grief! Coke trails–give me a break.
Well Andrew Revkin, at NYT has jumped into the Steve Macintyre critique of these siberian results, nad suddenly Real Climate is being touted as a source for science dialog.
Once again we have the tyranny of authority to deal with. If you are not the author of at least three peer reviewed solutions to Fermat’s last theorem, you have no standing to present criticism of any other solution.
Of course Fermat’s last theorem has now been proved; but it is a sure bet that the existing only known proof is most certainly NOT Fermat’s proof of Fermat’s last theorem; which evidently was so simple, that he didn’t even write it down; but merely asserted that he had proved the conjecture.
Well climate science is a melange of many common scientific and mathematical diciplines, and anyone with expertise in any of those subjects is more than capable of presenting sound scientific arguments, about aspects that fall into his/er realm of expertise; and establishing credibility does not require attempting to duplicate the work being criticised or doing similar data collection to present a different view.
Those who question Steve Macintyre’s results regarding the Siberian tree rings should address their criticisms to his data and methodology, and not to his persona.
Does Real Climate heavily censor comments? Just curious because my first comment regarding Briffa was never posted. My second attempt just went in… waiting.
Steve M,
Sorry. The only picture I had was the one above, which I magnified as best I could on my computer.
Personally I’d like to roam that landscape, to see if there were other trees like “Tyranny,” which lost their original leader shoot and had to develop forks. Then the next step would be to see if they lost their tops at the same time. If “Tyranny” is 200 years older than “Freedom,” it was alive back in the Little Ice Age, and perhaps there was a particularly bad winter back then.
Or a particularly bad ice storm. Or a particularly bad infestation of leader-shoot beetles. Or particularly bad what-have-you.
One thing I’m curious about is what actually defines the tree-line. The above post states, “The climate at the location is near the limit of the coldest temperatures larch trees can tolerate,” which suggests the tree-line is defined by winter cold. However, while shoveling the stable today, I was wondering if what kills the trees might be the fact summers get so cold the trees can’t grow at all. Does anyone know?
It is interesting to note there are skeletons of Siberian Larch north of the current tree-line, (and also skeletons of Bristlecone Pine above the current tree-line,) which suggests a past that was warmer than today’s climate.
While driving home three goats that escaped and appeared in a backyard a mile away, this evening, I found myself wondering about how swiftly the tree-line advances, during a climate optimum. (Pines move into abandoned hayfields very quickly, in New Hampshire.)
WUWT gets me wondering about such things. It’s great to hear the ponderings of other thinkers. Even if I only am able to check out this site five minutes a day, I can spend hours musing about the subjects brought up.
Isn’t it amazing that I, and many other contributors, are able to do this without a penny of grant money? In fact, going unpaid seems to make the contributors here freer than people who, beholden to patrons, or else seeking patrons, must limit their wondering in order to fit a preconceived result.
Well I give up on RC… they don’t post serious questions about the Briffa paper it seems. They don’t appear to like the wrong kind of scrutiny.
Good to see you around Caleb – keep up the grey matter exercise… you post some interesting questions.
When bull pines top out, they stop growing. Even in rainy years. If you don’t cut em, they eventually fall down. A topped out bull pine has a bushy spread at the top instead of a main leader. Makes a good platform for an eagles nest though.
Richard Patton (12:55:27) :
Bill Tuttle (03:11:37) :
Those are vapor trails, Michael — they’re composed of minute ice crystals formed when an aircraft’s engine exhaust (which is *hot*) undergoes rapid cooling at altitude. Water vapor in the exhaust plume is condensed, then frozen.
———————
Not just from the water vapor in the exhaust. For contrails to form the Relative Humidity in the layer of air must be above 86%.
Good catch, Richard — my sentence was badly-worded. Water vapor in the air *surrounding* the exhaust plume forms most of the contrail.
As a complete non science, non statistics person, it would seem to me that when measuring anything, the bigger the sample you take measurements from, the more accurate your conclusions will be. Because outlying readings get less weight in a larger sample. Why is something as important as this based on a handful of trees? Surely it should be thousands?
******
Caleb (20:13:26) :
While driving home three goats that escaped and appeared in a backyard a mile away, this evening, I found myself wondering about how swiftly the tree-line advances, during a climate optimum. (Pines move into abandoned hayfields very quickly, in New Hampshire.)
*******
Caleb, look at this article on Pielke Sr’s site:
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2006/07/12/open-arctic-ocean-commentary-by-harvey-nichols-professor-of-biology/
A very good past-climate analysis by an accomplished biologist. The rate of advancement can apparently be very quick.
Caleb, here’s more info from Dr Nichols on Pielke’s site:
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2006/06/16/230/
How do we know they both are Larch?
(sorry, somebody had to …)
beng: Your link does not work (for me at least). Possibly too long ago (2006)?
Do you have any other? I tried the title with Nichols on Google Scholar and it only turned up an abstract.
Alan, I tried both & connected to them.
Search PielkeSrs site for “harvey nichols”.
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/
FWIW, I’ve repeatedly had more plants “started” than I could “plant out”. The inevitable result is that some of the “starts” had their roots reach the edge of the pot and were forced to stop growing for a bit. When then planted out, they often refuse to fully ‘restart’. It is as though once the switch shifted to “runt mode’ it can not switch back.
My speculation would be that ‘a few centuries ago’ something very inhospitable was happening that caused the older tree to be ‘runted’ and it just never recovered, even when times changed to a nicer environment. I don’t think it is possible to say if it was cold, water, shade, rocky soil, nutrient limits. The process would be the same and the results the same in all the cases.
It could be as simple as which tree is closest to the bear den so when a bear takes a potty break it hits the nearer trees and not this one. Bear deliver most of the nitrogen into many forests via munching salmon that they carry into the woods and dumping in the woods a bit later. The most attractive “bear tree’ will get a LOAD more nutrients…
I saw a study in Pacific coast Canada, IIRC, that measured this effect and found the total N delivered was about the same as professional forest managers would apply for maximal tree growth.
Beng,
Thanks for the links.
I wish America had spent a little less grant money on computer models, and a bit more on sending guys up to look at arctic driftwood, 20 years ago. I think we could learn a lot about the swings of arctic climate from such study.
It is neat that the beaches have been in some ways preserved by being isostatically lifted. They are just sitting up there, with driftwood in the gravel, waiting for reserchers who don’t mind mosquitoes and cold summer weather.
It is very interesting to consider the fact that the first people we know of, who wandered the shores of the arctic long ago, found so much driftwood along the arctic beaches that they were able to heat and cook with it.
The first energy crisis must have been when that driftwood was all used up.