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account for and permit the direct environmental influences on dividing and growing
cells in the cambium.
By linking the external environmental controls on the formation of tree-ring prox-
ies to processes that primarily influence the cambial zone, the VS model allows us
to produce synthetic tree-ring series that can be compared directly to actual tree-
ring-based proxy observation of climate variability. In cases where robust coherence
between model results and actual data is found, we can use the model to mechanis-
tically interpret the basis of variations in the actual tree-ring data. Local, regional,
and synoptic-scale intercomparisons of model results and data suggest the VS model
explains gross features of interannual tree-ring width variability that are relatively
insensitive to parameter estimation. These results can be used to better understand
the processes underlying behavior of the actual data. In the case studies discussed
here, for instance, the apparent emergence of behavior such as the dependence of
eastern hemlock ring width variations on spring temperatures, and the increasing
dependence of ring width variations in the southeastern United States on summer-
time soil moisture can be explained in terms of intra-annual to multidecadal changes
in environmental conditions, as mediated by cambial processes. Future applications
of the model may include further exploration of the biological basis of emergent
phenomena, study of the nature of decadal-scale variability in tree-ring data, predic-
tion of the influence of future climate change on conifer forest growth, objective
process-based removal of potential non-climatic biases in tree-ring data prior to
paleoclimatic inversions, and the allowance for varying climate-tree growth rela-
tionships as a constraint in paleoclimatic modeling and reconstruction activities
using tree-ring data as input.
Acknowledgements KJA was supported by a graduate training fellowship from the NSF IGERT
Program (DGE-0221594) and a Graduate Research Environmental Fellowship (to KJA) from the
US Department of Energy.
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