Dendroclimatic reconstruction of summer precipitation at Srinagar, Kashmir, India, since the late-eighteenth century

Abstract

The extensive coniferous forests of the western Himalayas provide great potential for dendroclimatic research. Abies, Cedrus, Picea and Pinus are the main tree genera of the region, consisting of many old and living trees. The annual growth-ring patterns of these trees, which can be precisely dated, contain valuable high-resolution information on climate variability over the past few centuries. This paper presents an analysis of the ring-width data of Abies pindrow and Picea smithiana based on samples collected from forest sites around Pahalgam in the Kashmir Valley in 1982. The non- climatic variations have been filtered out of the raw ring-width series using a cubic spline smoothing, and ring-width index series have been obtained. The mean ring-width index chronologies have been prepared by averaging the indices of 13 samples for P. smithiana and eight samples for A. pindrow. The maximum lengths of mean ring-width index chronologies are 208 years (1775-1982) for P. smithiana and 371 years (1612-1982) for A. pindrow. Response functions have been developed using the instrumental record of monthly mean temperature and rainfall at Srinagar during the period 1893-1982. Both ring- width chronologies indicate a significant negative response to summer temperature and a significant positive relationship with summer precipitation. Calibration and verification analysis has been carried out for different combinations of months using a multiple species ring-series network and the summer precipitation at Srinagar has been reconstructed back to the eighteenth century.