Climate in Southwestern Ontario, Canada, between AD 1610 and 1885 Inferred from Oxygen and Hydrogen Isotopic Measurements of Wood Cellulose from Trees in Different Hydrologic Settings

Oxygen and hydrogen isotopes were measured in wood cellulose and cellulose-nitrate from trees that grew in different hydrologic settings in southwestern Ontario, Canada. An isotope model that accounts for isotopic fractionations associated with photosynthesis in plants was applied to the stable isotope data to infer past meteoric water isotopic composition and seasonal air moisture variations. The model-inferred climate data was rationalized in terms of the trees' hydrologic environment and weather characteristics of the Great Lakes region. The result is an account of summer and winter conditions in southwestern Ontario for 275 years (1610 to 1885) prior to instrumental climate records. Conditions between 1610 and 1750 are inferred to have been cooler and drier than present. This was followed by a warm-moist climate interval between 1750 and 1885 during which there was an increase in winter precipitation. Cool-dry conditions were recorded instrumentally in this region at the end of the nineteenth century.

Atmospheric sciences · Cellulose · Climatology · Geochemistry · Geography · Groundwater · Hydrology (agriculture) · Isotope · Isotopes of oxygen · Meteoric water · Meteorology · Moisture · Nitrate · Physical geography · Precipitation · Stable isotope ratio · Chemistry · Ecology · Environmental Science · Geology · Geology and Paleoclimatology Research · Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics · Tree-ring climate responses

• Climatic and hydrologic variability during the past millennium in the eastern Rocky Mountains and northern Great Plains of western Canada

  Open Access•Thomas W D Edwards, S J Birks et al.•Quaternary Research•2008

  Incluir item

• Stable isotopes in tree rings

  Open Access•Danny McCarroll, Neil J Loader•Quaternary Science Reviews•2004

  Incluir item

• Mid-Holocene warming in the northwest Kola Peninsula, Russia

  Open Access•Tatjana Boettger, Achim Hiller et al.•The Holocene•2003

  Incluir item

• Considering passenger pigeon abundance and distribution in the Late Woodland zooarchaeological record of southern Ontario, Canada

  Open Access•Trevor J Orchard, Suzanne Needs‐howarth et al.•International Journal of…•2023

  Incluir item