Dendroclimatic reconstructions for the southern Colorado plateau
- Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States)
A geographical network of climate sensitive tree-ring chronologies consisting of 25 archaeological sequences and two bristlecone pine series provides the basis for high resolution reconstructions of low and high frequency climatic variability on the southern Colorado Plateau over the last 1,500 years. Qualitative and quantitative dendroclimatic analyses of these data produce annual retrodictions of yearly and seasonal precipitation and summer Palmer Drought Severity Indices for each station and reconstructions of regional scale patterns in climatic variability. These reconstructions provide detailed information on climatic fluctuations that affected biotic and human populations as well as long-term baseline data for evaluating present-day climate and estimating future climatic trends. When integrated with other measures of past environmental variability, these reconstructions specify periods of favorable and unfavorable environmental conditions that would have affected past human populations of the region. The severest degradation, which occurred between A.D. 1250 and 1450, probably was causally related to numerous cultural changes that occurred at the end of the l3th century including the Anasazi abandonment of the Four Comers area. Projecting environmental patterns that characterized the last two millennia into the future indicates potential hazards to long term uranium mill waste disposal and containment and the potential and limitations of environmental restoration.
- Research Organization:
- Rust Geotech, Inc., Grand Junction, CO (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 198217
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9409325-; ON: DE96003275; TRN: 96:001174-0008
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Workshop on climate change in the four corners and adjacent regions: implications for environmental restoration and land-use planning, Grand Junction, CO (United States), 12-14 Sep 1994; Other Information: PBD: Sep 1995; Related Information: Is Part Of Climate change in the four corners and adjacent regions: Implications for environmental restoration and land-use planning; Waugh, W.J. [ed.]; PB: 199 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Early Holocene cold snaps and their expression in the moraine record of the eastern European Alps
Dendroclimatic reconstruction with time varying predictor subsets of tree indices