Millennium-long ring-width chronology of Himalayan cedar from Garhwal Himalaya and its potential in climate change studies

Abstract

We report here a 1198-year long (AD 805-2002) ring-width chronology of Himalayan cedar (Cedrus deodara) from a site in Bhaironghati, Garhwal, Uttaranchal. This provides the longest record of ring-width chronology preparedso far using living tree samples from the Himalayan region. The forest from which the constituent samples were derived is a natural stand of mixed age. Many of the trees are several centuries old, with average age reaching 532 years. The ring-width chronology shows strong indirect relationship with mean monthly temperature from February to May. Strong temperature signal present in the series shows the potential of such long-term chronologies in developing climatic reconstructions useful for evaluating the recent climatic changes under the background influence of increasing concentration of greenhouse gases.