Global wood anatomical perspective on the onset of the Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA) in the mid-6th century CE

0568198 - ÚVGZ 2023 RIV CN eng J - Journal Article
Büntgen, Ulf - Crivellaro, A. - Arseneault, D. - Baillie, M. - Barclay, D. - Bernabei, M. - Bontadi, J. - Boswijk, G. - Brown, D. - Christie, D. A. - Churakova (Sidorova), O. - Cook, E.R. - D'Arrigo, R. - Davi, N. - Esper, Jan - Fonti, P. - Greaves, C. - Hantemirov, R. - Hughes, Malcolm K. - Kirdyanov, A. V. - Krusic, P. J. - Le Quesne, C. - Ljungqvist, F. C. - McCormick, M. - Myglan, V. S. - Nicolussi, K. - Oppenheimer, C. - Palmer, J. - Qin, C. - Reinig, F. - Trnka, Miroslav … Total 39 authors
Global wood anatomical perspective on the onset of the Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA) in the mid-6th century CE.
Science Bulletin. Roč. 67, č. 22 (2022), s. 2336-2344. ISSN 2095-9273. E-ISSN 2095-9281
R&D Projects: GA MŠMT(CZ) EF16_019/0000797
Institutional support: RVO:86652079
Keywords : Blue Rings * Climate extremes * Dendrochronology * Late Antiquity * Tree rings * Volcanic eruptions
OECD category: Climatic research
Impact factor: 18.9, year: 2022
Method of publishing: Open access
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095927322004790?via%3Dihub

Linked to major volcanic eruptions around 536 and 540 CE, the onset of the Late Antique Little Ice Age has been described as the coldest period of the past two millennia. The exact timing and spatial extent of this exceptional cold phase are, however, still under debate because of the limited resolution and geographical distribution of the available proxy archives. Here, we use 106 wood anatomical thin sections from 23 forest sites and 20 tree species in both hemispheres to search for cell-level fingerprints of ephemeral summer cooling between 530 and 550 CE. After cross-dating and double-staining, we identified 89 Blue Rings (lack of cell wall lignification), nine Frost Rings (cell deformation and collapse), and 93 Light Rings (reduced cell wall thickening) in the Northern Hemisphere. Our network reveals evidence for the strongest temperature depression between mid-July and early-August 536 CE across North America and Eurasia, whereas more localised cold spells occurred in the summers of 532, 540-43, and 548 CE. The lack of anatomical signatures in the austral trees suggests limited incursion of stratospheric volcanic aerosol into the Southern Hemisphere extra-tropics, that any forcing was mitigated by atmosphere-ocean dynamical responses and/or concentrated outside the growing season, or a combination of factors. Our findings demonstrate the advantage of wood anatomical investigations over traditional dendrochronological measurements, provide a benchmark for Earth system models, support cross-disciplinary studies into the entanglements of climate and history, and question the relevance of global climate averages. (c) 2022 Science China Press. Published by Elsevier B.V. and Science China Press.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0339529