Multi-millennia dendrochronology in the British Columbia coast mountains

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Significant contributions to climate science within the last two decades have firmly established tree-rings as valuable sources of proxy data for evaluating long-term climate trends at the atmosphere-ocean scale. Crucial to elucidating the inherent natural variability and answering questions about longer state-scale climate shifts in Pacific Canada is the development of supra-long paleoclimatic records built from living and subfossil trees. The project expands upon research underway at the University of Victoria Tree-Ring Laboratory and seeks to develop annually-resolved records of climatic variability from tree ring records. Known ancient forest stands will be re-sampled to deepen and extend the duration of our existing >800 year old ring-width chronologies. Focused attention will be given to sampling submerged logs, potentially preserved for thousands of years, from small lakes and ponds at montane sites in the Coast Mountains. Composite tree-ring chronologies will then be from living trees, dead standing logs and subfossil wood recovered from small lakes to produce a supra-long tree-ring chronology extending backwards thousands of years. The research allows for the development of linkages between the dendrochronological community, non-profit researchers, the forest industry and others who can use these data in the development of climate change scenarios. The research provides information fundamental to furthering our knowledge of the impact of climate changes in Pacific Canada, and assists with information crucial for developing resource management solutions that will ensure the long-term vitality of Canada's forests, forest product industries and glacier-derived water supplies.