Decade-to-Century Hydroclimatic Variability in Western North America

Two components of this project are the extension of cool-season precipitation information to the millennial time scale and the investigation of the warm-season precipitation signal. As one approach to the warm-season signal we are developing a network of latewood-width chronologies from various parts of western North America. Dave Stahle and Malcolm Cleaveland ( U Arkansas) are collaborators in this research under a related NOAA award.

An extension was granted in 2000 to allow the the research to be expanded to an detailed examination of the latewood width signal in a daily precipitation data set.

• Summer rainfall signal in tree rings
• Millennial-length chronology development
• Large-scale seasonal climatic signals in tree rings
• Interseasonal linkages

• Meko, D.M., and Baisan, C.H., 1999, Tree-ring indicators or long-term variability of the North American Monsoon, Poster presentation at the 24th Annual Climate Diagnostics Workshop, Tucson, Arizona, November 1-5, 1999.
• Meko, D.M., and Baisan, C.H., 2001, Pilot study of latewood-width of confers as an indicator of variability of summer rainfall in the north American Monsoon region: International J. of Climatology, v. 21, p. 697-708.