Dendrochronology is the study of the chronological sequence of annual growth rings in trees. Research on tree rings has led to the development of various subareas of dendrochronology. For example, dendrogeomorphology, which relates to the dating and deciphering of geological and geomorphological...

Tree rings form the backbone of high-resolution palaeoclimatology and represent one of the most frequently used proxy to reconstruct climate variability of the Common Era. In the European Alps, reconstructions were often based on tree-ring width (TRW) and maximum latewood density (MXD) series, with ...

Age-related trends are present in tree-ring widths (TRW), but their presence in tree rings isotope is debated. It is unclear how cambial age influences the relationships between TRW and isotopes. Tree-ring isotopes of alpine larch and cembran-pine trees showed only trends in the juvenile period...

Millennial-length tree-ring width chronologies are used to reconstruct temperature and place recent warming into historical context. The Simplon valley in the Western Central Alps is an ideal region for such a study as it provides historical timber back to medieval times which can be combined with...

Alpine treeline ecosystems are generally expected to advance with increasing temperatures and after land-use abandonment. Multiple interacting factors modify this trend. Understanding the long-term processes underlying treeline advance is essential to predict future changes in structure and...

Born 29th February 1936 near Bern, Switzerland, Fritz Hans Schweingruber worked as a teacher until 1965, obtained a PhD in botany from the University of Basel in 1972 (where he also obtained a Professorship in 1976), and started his lifelong career at the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL in...

During recent decades, stable oxygen isotopes derived from tree-ring cellulose (δ¹⁸O_TRC) have been frequently utilised as the baseline for palaeoclimatic reconstructions. In this context, numerous studies take advantage of the high sensitivity of trees close to their ecological distribution limit...

Tree-ring stable isotopes are insightful proxies providing information on pre-instrumental climate fluctuations, yet the variability of these data within a tree trunk has not been fully explored. Here, we analyze longitudinal and circumferential changes in tree-ring δ¹³C values from 1991-2010,...

As the worldwide standard for radiocarbon (¹⁴C) dating over the past ca. 50,000 years, the International Calibration Curve (IntCal) is continuously improving towards higher resolution and replication. Tree-ring-based ¹⁴C measurements provide absolute dating throughout most of the Holocene, although ...

Subfossil trees with their annual rings constitute the most accurate and precise archive to calibrate the radiocarbon (¹⁴C) method. The Holocene part of the IntCal curve is based on tree-ring chronologies, absolutely dated by dendrochronological matching. For the Northern Hemisphere, the absolute...