Page:Climatic Cycles and Tree-Growth - 1919.djvu/92

 Dry-climate tests.— In the work of 1907 (published 1909) upon the first group of 25 yellow pines from 1700 to 1900 A. D., several long sequences of variation in a 5 to 6 year period were noted. These were compared with rainfall records at Prescott and in southern California and the crests of rainfall and growth appeared to coincide in date. It was then seen that the temperature curve of southern California had a period and phase corresponding to the rainfall curve, but with the second minimum almost entirely suppressed, and that finally this temperature curve resembled in form and phase the inverted curve of sunspot numbers. In connection with the publication referred to (1909), a set of curves was prepared to show these relationships. This set is partly reproduced in figure 34, page 104. In the original drawing the tree-curve was the least satisfactory, which was to be expected, as no real certainty in the dating of rings existed at that time. After cross-identification the tree-curve was again integrated for the 11-year period and far better results were obtained. This new curve is given in the figure referred to.

This type of integrated curve gives many facts in a very condensed form. A differential or detailed form of presentation should accompany it, as in figure 25, showing the full series of individual observations and beside it the curve with which it is to be compared. The differential study of the Arizona trees will be taken up in connection with cycles, but can be summarized in the statement that in the last 160 years 10 of the 14 sunspot maxima and minima have been followed about four years later by pronounced maxima and minima in the tree-growth. Also, during some 250 years of the early growth of these trees, they show a strongly marked double-crested 11-year variation.

Wet-climate reaction. — In the very first group of continental trees studied, those obtained at Eberswalde near Berlin, the remarkable fact was recognized at once that 13 trees from one of those carefully tended German forests show the 11-year sunspot curve since 1830 with accuracy. The variation in the trees is shown in plate 8. The arrows on the photographs are not to call attention to the larger growth, but to mark the years of maximum sunspots. The other trees of that group do not show quite so perfect rhythm as do the marked radii shown, but are like the other parts of these sections, showing strongly a majority of the maxima. Taking the group as a whole, the agreement is highly conspicuous, and the maximum growth comes within 0.6 year of the sunspot maximum. The Eberswalde curves arranged in two groups and compared with the sunspot curve were shown in figure 9, page 38.

In the group of six sections from south Sweden, which were measured subsequently in Stockholm, a spruce (Picea excelsa) was discovered which shows the sunspot rhythm with the same striking clarity as the