Comparison of Sungkai Tree-Ring Components and Meteorological Data

from Western Java, Indonesia

Note:

Comparison of Sungkai Tree-Ring Components and

Meteorological Data from Western Java, Indonesia
Yumiko Watanabe1 , Shigeki Tamura1 , Takeshi Nakatsuka2 , Suyako Tazuru3 ,
Junji Sugiyama3 , Bambang Subiyanto4 , Toshitaka Tsuda3 , and Takahiro Tagami1
1 Division

of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University

Kyoto 606-8502, Japan
E-mail: yumiko@kueps.kyoto-u.ac.jp
2 Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University
Nagoya 464-8601, Japan
3 Research Institute for Sustainable Humanosphere, Kyoto University
Gokasho, Uji, Kyoto 611-0011, Japan
4 Center for Innovation, Indonesian Institute of Sciences
Jl. Gatot Subroto No.10, Jakarta 12710, Indonesia
[Received October 10, 2012; accepted January 7, 2013]

In order to explore the potential of tree-ring components as climate proxies in Asian tropical area, we
performed a systematic comparison between temporal
variations in meteorological data precipitation, relative humidity and sunlight hours and those in treering parameters ring width, mean earlywood vessel
area and 18 O in a sungkai disk collected from western Java, Indonesia. Ring width shows a significant
positive correlation with precipitation in the last dry
season prior to growth period. Ring width is also correlated inversely with sunlight hours in the last dry
season. Mean earlywood vessel area shows a significant, positive correlation with precipitation and relative humidity during the rainy season of growth period. The 18 O and 13 C time series of alpha-cellulose
samples, which divide each ring into three parts earlywood, inner latewood and outer latewood vary, furthermore, from 22 to 28 and from 28 to 24 ,
respectively. 13 C results show distinct annual cycles,
for which values of earlywood are highest, gradually
followed by a decrease. Although 18 O has no such
seasonal pattern, annual-averaged 18 O records show
an inverse correlation with precipitation and relative
humidity in the rainy season of growth period. As described above, multi-components of sungkai tree rings
are expected to be useful in paleoclimate reconstruction on a seasonal scale.
Keywords: tree ring, ring width, vessel area, stable isotope geochemistry, -cellulose

1. Introduction
The tropic plays a very important role as a global
heat engine that transports heat from the low to high
latitudes. Climate anomalies in the tropics, such as El
Journal of Disaster Research Vol.8 No.1, 2013

Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), thus affect worldwide through teleconnection. The tropics is, accordingly,
a crucial region for elucidating the global climate system.
The history of meteorological observation is, however,
only a few centuries long and available data is concentrated in Europe and eastern North America (Parker et al.,
2000). In order to quantitatively reconstruct the climate
of the tropics, we need to establish a paleoclimate proxy
that supplements instrumental records effectively.
As a paleoclimate proxy, tree-ring reconstruction has
the great advantage of exact dating with an annualresolution (McCarroll and Loader, 2004). Previous studies have shown that tree-ring components, e.g., ring
width, 18 O in cellulose and wood density, are useful
proxies in reconstructing paleoclimate. Paleoclimate reconstruction based on tree rings is, however, very limited in the tropics because it is difficult there to acquire
long-lived wood samples with annual tree rings. There
are only small number of studies, especially in Indonesia, such as DArrigo et al. (1994) and Poussart et al.
(2004). DArrigo et al. (1994) show that the tree-ring
width of teak is an effective proxy for ancient precipitation or dry season ENSO prior to growth period. Annualaveraged oxygen isotopic ratios of -cellulose in two Javanese teaks, in contrast, have high reproducibility, suggesting that teak 18 O reflects external climate forcing,
i.e., precipitation and/or relative humidity (Poussart et al.,
2004).
In order to assess the reliability of tree-ring components
as climate proxies in this study, we systematically compared between temporal variations in meteorological data
precipitation, relative humidity and sunlight hours and
in three parameters ring width, mean earlywood vessel area and 18 O in sungkai tree rings collected from
western Java, Indonesia. Sungkai is a good candidate for
reconstructing the paleoclimate in annual/seasonal resolution for the following reasons: it has distinct tree rings
even though it is a tropical tree species, it is a fast-growing
95

Watanabe, Y. et al.

(a)

(c)

(b)

Fig. 1. (a) Location of Serang, western Java, Indonesia. (b) Monthly precipitation at Serang (data from Badan
meteorologi, klimatologi, dan geofisika; BMKG). (c) SungkaiNAN7 disk sample. The boxed section is utilized for
isotopic measurement.

tree (Ogata et al., 2008) although it is not so long-lived,

and it is widely distributed in the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo and Java (Ogata et al., 2008).

2. Material and Methods

The sample analyzed is sungkai (Peronema canescens
Jack), which is closely related to teak (Tectona grandis
Linn f.). This sample was collected from a site in Serang,
western Java, Indonesia (Fig. 1a). As shown in Fig. 1b,
monthly-averaged air temperature remains fairly constant
through the year at Serang. In contrast, precipitation
records for Serang show a large seasonal cycle, which oscillated between the dry season from approximately May
to October and the wet season from November to April, in
conjunction with Intertropical Convergence Zone movement (Fig. 1b). The seasonal cycle of precipitation forms
annual growth rings in sungkai.
Our sungkai sample was cut down in December of
2004. The disk sample, which is named SungkaiNAN7
(Fig. 1c), had 25 tree rings, showing that its growth
spanned the interval from 1980 to 2004. The outside
ring was primarily composed of conduits, showing that
the ring was formed at the onset of the rainy season, i.e.,
just before the felling in December of 2004. The treering growth year is defined herein as the calendar year in
which growth begins. We investigated the correlations between tree-ring components and climate parameters dur-

ing 1988-2004 because the growth rate before 1987 is

higher than the rate after 1987.
We measured four components ring width, mean earlywood vessel area, 13 C and 18 O in SungkaiNAN7,
as described below.
Ring width and mean earlywood vessel area:
The
SungkaiNAN7 disk was scanned using a high-resolution
scanner (Fig. 1c). The digital image acquired was then
employed for the measurement of ring width and mean
vessel area in earlywood by using software from Adobe
Photoshop and ImageJ (W. S. Rasband, ImageJ, U. S. National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA1 ).
In order to exclude the influences of anisotropic growth,
we measured the area of the tree ring, then divided it by
the inner circumference, which was measured by ImageJ,
to estimate the averaged ring width. Measured earlywood
vessel area was divided by the number of vessels to estimate mean earlywood vessel area.

18 O and 13 C analyses in -cellulose: Each tree ring

was divided into three parts, i.e., earlywood, inner latewood and outer latewood. -cellulose from each sample was extracted by chemical procedures modified after
Loader et al. (1997), Nakatsuka et al. (2004); details are
described by Harada et al. (in preparation). Briefly, the
extraction has three chemical procedures, as follows: [1]
organic solvent extraction in acetone for 1 hr in an ultrasonic bath [2] delignification consisting of a bleaching
1. http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/

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Journal of Disaster Research Vol.8 No.1, 2013