Award Abstract # 1702789
Collaborative Research: P2C2--Reconstructing South American Monsoon Sensitivity to Internal and External Forcing: Reconciling Models and Tree-ring Proxies in the Central Andes

NSF Org: AGS
Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences
Recipient: THE TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK
Initial Amendment Date: February 26, 2018
Latest Amendment Date: March 6, 2020
Award Number: 1702789
Award Instrument: Continuing Grant
Program Manager: David Verardo
AGS
 Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences
GEO
 Directorate for Geosciences
Start Date: March 1, 2018
End Date: February 28, 2023 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $544,853.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $544,853.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2018 = $139,231.00
FY 2019 = $154,783.00

FY 2020 = $250,839.00
History of Investigator:
  • Laia Andreu-Hayles (Principal Investigator)
    lah@ldeo.columbia.edu
  • Rosanne D'Arrigo (Co-Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: Columbia University
615 W 131ST ST
NEW YORK
NY  US  10027-7922
(212)854-6851
Sponsor Congressional District: 13
Primary Place of Performance: Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University
61 Route 9W
Palisades
NY  US  10964-1707
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
17
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): F4N1QNPB95M4
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s): Paleoclimate
Primary Program Source: 01001819DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
01001920DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT

01002021DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s): 7754, 8070
Program Element Code(s): 153000
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.050

ABSTRACT

The potential Broader Impacts include the potential for better understanding the South American monsoon, for filling in sparse hydroclimate records, and for fuller understanding climate variability. Collaboration with South American colleagues is planned as is extensive student involvement.

This project aims to employ classical dendrochronological techniques to generate new tropical tree-ring chronologies that are annually resolved and absolutely dated. Radiocarbon measurements (14-Carbon) will ensure accurate dating assessments. Thus, successful tree species will be selected to improve the 14-Carbon curve for the Southern Hemisphere. The resulting tree-ring series will be used to reconstruct past climate variability and regional to large--scale atmospheric dynamics for the last several centuries. The specific aims of the project are to improve understanding of: (1) the spatiotemporal variability of the South American summer monsoon (SASM); (2) long-term interactions between El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the SASM; and (3) the impact of volcanic forcing on past hydroclimate of the tropical Andes.

The research aims to provide significant advances in the science of tropical dendrochronology by
developing a tree-ring network for the tropical Andes in Peru and Bolivia, a region with exceedingly scarce coverage of high-resolution terrestrial paleo-records. While tree rings have been extensively used in temperate climates, the tropics remain relatively unexplored due to the difficulty, in particular, of identifying consistent wood layers (tree rings) corresponding to seasonal or annual growing periods. The Central Andes are an ideal region for overcoming these difficulties, due to the pronounced precipitation seasonality and diverse forests.

The tropical Andes are a hotspot for biodiversity and its geographic position makes it extremely vulnerable to climate change. It also contains nearly all the tropical glaciers on the globe, and recent, widespread glacial retreat is causing a rapid decline in hydrological reserves. This decline, in combination with increasing water demand due to population growth and economic expansion poses an enormous challenge for water availability, biodiversity and food security. The complex topography of the Andean Cordillera leads to a climate that is characterized by strong zonal and vertical precipitation gradients. Moisture influx from the tropical Atlantic Ocean and the Amazon basin is modulated by the SASM and ENSO. The scientific understanding of this variability is challenged by the scarcity of long instrumental observations, which also limits the ability to constrain uncertainties in future climate change projections over this region.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

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(Showing: 1 - 10 of 17)
Andreu-Hayles, Laia and Levesque, Mathieu and Martin-Benito, Dario and Huang, Wei and Harris, Ryan and Oelkers, Rose and Leland, Caroline and Martin-Fernández, Javier and Anchukaitis, Kevin J. and Helle, Gerhard "A high yield cellulose extraction system for small whole wood samples and dual measurement of carbon and oxygen stable isotopes" Chemical Geology , v.504 , 2019 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemgeo.2018.09.007 Citation Details
Andreu-Hayles, Laia and Tejedor, Ernesto and DArrigo, Rosanne and Locosselli, Giuliano Maselli and Rodríguez-Catón, Milagros and Daux, Valerie and Oelkers, Rose and Pacheco-Solana, Arturo and Paredes-Villanueva, Kathelyn and Rodríguez-Morata, Clara "Dendrochronological advances in the tropical and subtropical Americas: Research priorities and future directions" Dendrochronologia , v.81 , 2023 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dendro.2023.126124 Citation Details
Cook, Benjamin I. and Smerdon, Jason E. and Cook, Edward R. and Williams, A. Park and Anchukaitis, Kevin J. and Mankin, Justin S. and Allen, Kathryn and Andreu-Hayles, Laia and Ault, Toby R. and Belmecheri, Soumaya and Coats, Sloan and Coulthard, Bethany "Megadroughts in the Common Era and the Anthropocene" Nature Reviews Earth & Environment , v.3 , 2022 https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-022-00329-1 Citation Details
Crispín-DelaCruz, Doris B. and Morales, Mariano.S. and Andreu-Hayles, Laia. and Christie, Duncan.A. and Guerra, Anthony and Requena-Rojas, Edilson. J. "High ENSO sensitivity in tree rings from a northern population of Polylepis tarapacana in the Peruvian Andes" Dendrochronologia , v.71 , 2022 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dendro.2021.125902 Citation Details
Morales, Mariano S. and Cook, Edward R. and Barichivich, Jonathan and Christie, Duncan A. and Villalba, Ricardo and LeQuesne, Carlos and Srur, Ana M. and Ferrero, M. Eugenia and González-Reyes, Álvaro and Couvreux, Fleur and Matskovsky, Vladimir and Arave "Six hundred years of South American tree rings reveal an increase in severe hydroclimatic events since mid-20th century" Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , v.117 , 2020 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2002411117 Citation Details
Morales, Mariano S. and Crispín-DelaCruz, Doris B. and Álvarez, Claudio and Christie, Duncan A. and Ferrero, M. Eugenia and Andreu-Hayles, Laia and Villalba, Ricardo and Guerra, Anthony and Ticse-Otarola, Ginette and Rodríguez-Ramírez, Ernesto C. and LLoc "Drought increase since the mid-20th century in the northern South American Altiplano revealed by a 389-year precipitation record" Climate of the Past , v.19 , 2023 https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-457-2023 Citation Details
Oelkers, Rose C. and Andreu-Hayles, Laia and DArrigo, Rosanne and Pacheco-Solana, Arturo and Rodriguez-Caton, Milagros and Fuentes, Alfredo and Santos, Guaciara M. and Tejedor, Ernesto and Ferrero, M. Eugenia and Maldonado, Carla "Recent growth increase in endemic Juglans boliviana from the tropical Andes" Dendrochronologia , v.79 , 2023 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dendro.2023.126090 Citation Details
Orrison, R and Vuille, M and Rodrigues, J C and Stríkis, N M and Cruz, F and RodriguezCaton, M and AndreuHayles, L "Pacific Interannual and Multidecadal Variability Recorded in 18 O of South American Summer Monsoon Precipitation" Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres , v.129 , 2024 https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JD040999 Citation Details
Ortega Rodriguez, Daigard Ricardo and Sánchez-Salguero, Raúl and Hevia, Andrea and Granato-Souza, Daniela and Cintra, Bruno B.L. and Hornink, Bruna and Andreu-Hayles, Laia and Assis-Pereira, Gabriel and Roig, Fidel A. and Tomazello-Filho, Mario "Climate variability of the southern Amazon inferred by a multi-proxy tree-ring approach using Cedrela fissilis Vell." Science of The Total Environment , v.871 , 2023 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.162064 Citation Details
Pacheco-Solana, Arturo and Oelkers, Rose and DArrigo, Rosanne and Santos, Guaciara M. and Rodriguez-Caton, Milagros and Tejedor, Ernesto and Ferrero, Eugenia and Fuentes, Alfredo F. and Maldonado, Carla and Andreu-Hayles, Laia "Radiocarbon and wood anatomy as complementary tools for generating tree-ring records in Bolivia" Frontiers in Plant Science , v.14 , 2023 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2023.1135480 Citation Details
Penchenat, Tiphaine and Daux, Valérie and Mundo, Ignacio and Pierre, Monique and Stievenard, Michel and Srur, Ana and Andreu-Hayles, Laia and Villalba, Ricardo "Tree-ring isotopes from Araucaria araucana as useful proxies for climate reconstructions" Dendrochronologia , v.74 , 2022 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dendro.2022.125979 Citation Details
(Showing: 1 - 10 of 17)

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

The main goal of this project was to address fundamental questions related to how climate, and specifically hydroclimate, has varied across the tropical Andes of South America over the past several hundred years. Such information cannot be provided from the short and sparsely distributed instrumental records currently available. Therefore, we utilized longer, high-resolution (annual or seasonal) so-called 'proxy' data derived from precisely-dated tree-ring wood samples.

For this project, numerous chronologies have been established across the central tropical Andes, representing more than 36 tree species native to Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile. Some of these chronologies were generated from newly described species in dendrochronology, considerably expanding the list of suitable species for such studies. We supplemented traditional dating methods (i.e. tree-ring width) using the techniques of radiocarbon and wood anatomical analysis to clarify ring boundaries and confirm annual periodicity in species where traditional methods alone may be insufficient. We discovered that stable oxygen isotopes in tree rings are valid recorders of precipitation (rainfall) variability during the wet season, and that timeseries of various wood anatomical features can provide novel information independent of the width of the rings. Our innovative approaches and analyses offer valuable insight into the interrelationships between tropical climate patterns and tree growth dynamics. This research has improved our understanding of: (1) the variability of the South American summer monsoon (SASM), a key feature of tropical climate across our study region; (2) long-term interactions between the SASM and the global El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) system; and (3) the impact of volcanic cooling on the past hydroclimate of the tropical Andes.

Lastly, we note that this project is an intensive, collaborative effort between scientists at the Tree-Ring Lab of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University (TRL-LDEO), the University of California - Irvine and the State University at Albany, New York. Multiple educational and research opportunities and activities were provided for scientists, students and other personnel at these institutions as well as those of our South American collaborators. Besides field and lab training, collaborative peer-reviewed papers are being published in key journals and the results presented at scientific conferences around the world. Importantly, our achievements and key findings are the direct result of synergies forged between the co-PIs of this project and our South American partners.


Last Modified: 07/12/2023
Modified by: Laia Andreu-Hayles

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