Analele Universităţii de Vest din Timişoara, GEOGRAFIE, vol. XX, 2010, pp.

xxx

RECONSTRUCTION OF RAINFALL REGIME IN MEHEDINȚI

MOUNTAINS FOR THE LAST 150 YEARS USING
DENDROCHRONOLOGY

Patrick Chiroiu, Cristian Ardelean

Department of Geography, West University of Timisoara, Romania, p.chiroiu@gmail.com

Abstract: Using information provided by annual tree-rings of Pinus nigra var. banatica
from the steep limestone slopes of the Domogled Massif – located in the south-western
part of the Mehedinţi Mountains – and based on the annual precipitation values obtained
from the Băile Herculane Meteorological Station, we accomplished a
dendroclimatological study which reconstructs annual precipitation values for the last 150
years. The study also shows a general decreasing trend for this climatic factor, and
identifies years with extreme - maximum and minimum - values. On the other hand,
frequent wildfires occur within the study area, being triggered by general climate
conditions, especially by drought periods with very low rainfall during summer. Acording
to this we will try to explain the occurence of ring growth anomalies (very narrow ring
sequences) which appear in some periods over the last 150 years.

Key words: rainfall regime, dendrochronology, Mehedinți Mountains, Romania.

Cuvinte cheie: regimul precipitațiilor, dendrocronologie, Munții Mehedinți, România.

1. INTRODUCTION

By analizing the trees’ growth rings dendrochronologists extract

valuable information about past climate conditions, geomorphological,
ecological or human-activity related events that occured during the trees’
life (Grissino-Mayer, 1995). For decoding the data stored in annual tree-
rings we use dendrochronlogy, a dating method suitable for several research
fields. Diferrent external and internal influences have to be isolated in order
to recognize their print in the tree-ring characteristics (Stokes and Smiley,
Patrick CHIROIU, Cristian ARDELEAN

1968). The climatic factor is the only one which occurs uniformly, with a
strict annual periodicity and whose anomalies are coherent over larger
spatial regions (Tessier, Guibal, Schweingruber, 1997). Dendroclimatology
studies the relationship between the climatic factors and the tree-ring
characteristics, with the purpose of providing a reasonable view over the
past climate, and to project future climate changes (Speer, 2010).
The main goal of this dendroclimatological approach is to reconstruct
annual precipitation values for the time span between 1850 – 2010 in the
Domogled Massif, (part of the Mehedinţi Mountains), by analizing tree-
rings from the pines growing in this area (Pinus nigra var. Banatica). This
reconstruction is based on the calibration between data extracted from the
dendrochronological samples and climatic data obtained from the Băile
Herculane Meteorological Station (for the period 1976 – 2008).
The idea that started this approach grew around the fact that in the
black pine forrest of the Domogled – Cerna Valley National Park we
identified frequent wildfire occurance, some of them nearby the thermal
resort of Băile Herculane. Fritts (2001) notices the corellation between
climate conditions and wildfires, suggesting that drought years favor
wildfires. In other words, knowing that trees form narrow rings in dry
periods, we can conclude that „almost every one of the narrow rings ... were
associated with fires” (Fritts, 2001, p.16). Besides the main goal of the
study, we thereby search for the specific years with low precipitation
values, condition that ...... (Grissino-Mayer, H.D., Swetnam, T.H., 2000). It
is important to mention that the present study is not a
dendropirochronological approach (it doesn’t aim the trees’ response to
fire), but a dendroclimatological one, using the specific analysis methods
common for this dendrochronology branch. While reconstructing the
precipitation curve, we will try to identify a general trend of annual mean
precipitation values estimated for the last 150 years in the study area. We
consider this aspect being important because it captures the evolution trend
for annual precipitation values that fell down during the transition period
that streches from the end of the Little Ice Age Period (around 1870)
(Mann, 2002), until the present day, as well as the climatic variability of
this time span.

2. STUDY AREA

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 Reconstruction on rainfall regime in Mehedinți Mt. for the last 150 years using dendrochronology

The Mehedinţi Mountains (Fig.1) are located in the south western

part of the Retezat – Godeanu Mountains, being separated from the Cerna
Mountains in the north, by the tectonic fissure of the Cerna. At the south-
western end of the Mehedinţi Mountains, spread between the Jelărău (east)
and the Feregari (west) valleys, lies the Domogled Massif, ranging to 1105
m.a.s.l. in its highest peak, the Domogled Peak. The Domogled has a its
distinct aspect given by the steep limestone slopes that run down to the
Cerna river, area characterized by several debris cones. Mostly formed by
limestone, the Domogled shows the specific carstic relief (exo- and
endocarst), gorges, limestone walls, dry valleys, and caves. The structural
relief is represented by structural belts which appear on the northern slope
and by the high plateau which spreads between the two peaks: Little
Domogled (north) and Big Domogled (south).

Fig.1. The Mehedinţi Mountains (left) and the Domogled Massif (right below, Source:
Google Earth, 2011)
The tree species chosen for our dendrochoronologic approach is the
black pine of Banat (Pinus nigra var. banatica), an endemic variety of the
black pine. The black pine spreads around Mediterranean forest regions of
southern Europe, western Asia and northern Africa, and is rarely met inside

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Patrick CHIROIU, Cristian ARDELEAN

Europe (Pinus nigra var. austriaca), being adapted to dry climate and
rough, uneven relief (Coombes, 2004).
In Romania we can find isolated sites of black pine forests in the
Mehedinţi Mountains and on the southern slopes of the Almăj and Locvei
Mountains, nearby the Danube Valley. The black pine of Banat is rarely
higher than 30-35m. and has, at maturity, an umbrella shaped habit,
widened at its top. Resistent to drought, the black pine easily adapts to
scheletic soils like the ones found on the northern slopes of the Domogled.
The black pine forests are protected by law, being part of the Domogled –
Cerna Valley National Park, created by the Ord.7 of the
MAPPM/27.01.1990, reconfirmed by the 5/2000 Law regarding the
arrangement plan of the national territory.

Foto 1 and 2. Limestone slopes populated with black pine in the Mehedinţi
Mountains

5. MATERIALS AND METHODS

We sampled 38 trees, from three different sites (11 trees from site I,
5 trees from site II and 22 trees from site III). We collected 73 cores,
generally 2 cores per tree. The coring was done with three Pressler
increment borers (Haglöf – Sweden, two 300mm. and one 400mm.). The
sites were chosen according to the dendrochronological principles of site
selection and limiting factors (Grissino-Mayer, 2005).

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 Reconstruction on rainfall regime in Mehedinți Mt. for the last 150 years using dendrochronology

Site I is located at 750 m.a.s.l., with a V-NV exposition and a slope

of 15 şi 20°, consisting of a pine cluster. The soil thickness is considerable,
permitting a grassy covering. Site II is located at the same altitude, only 150
m. far, but with a northern exposition and a steeper slope (25-35°). Site III
is a pine forest on the western slope of the Jelărău Valley, located at 500 –
530 m.a.s.l., with a N-NE exposition, and a 20-25° slope, where the forest
expansion is more significant. The initial site selection process attended to
point out some differences between tree-ring growths, due to different
topographical conditions, but after analyzing the cores we did not detect
notable distinctions, therefore we congregated all samples for the main
analysis. We observed, in all of the three sites, numerous specimens with
different degrees of wildfire exposal (burned bark, fire scars and totally
burned trees). This observations drew attention on the fact that the signal
(climate – tree-ring growth correlation) could be affected by this perturbing
factor.
According to Phipps (1985), the sampled cores were sanded with
three different grits (80, 180 şi 400) and scanned at 1200dpi. The
dendrochronological analysis started with counting rings and measuring
their widths at a 0,01mm. precission using CooRecorder (Larsson, 2004). In
order to decrease errors risen from wrong interpretation of false or absent
rings, at the same time with CooRecorder counting and measuring, we
constructed a Skeleton Plot on 10 square plotting paper, by drawing the
marker years (the most narrow and the widest rings). After dating every
ring we used CDendro (Larsson, 2003), for crossdating the cores and
finding the correlation coefficient between the reference core (DOM_01A)
and the rest of the samples. We extracted the best 40 correlations (each with
a correlation coefficient over 0,5), summarizing cores from 20 trees in order
to construct the reference curve. Crossdating was verified with COFECHA
(Grissino-Mayer, 2001), standandization (Worsley, 1994, Vuia, 2006) was
run with the ARSTAN program using the negative exponential curve (Fritts,
1976). Three types of chronologies resulted: standard, residual and
ARSTAN; of which we used the residual chronology as reference curve
(Fritts, 1976, Speer, 2010). The precipitation values used in the calibration
process were obtained by adding together values recorded in 13 months,
from July last year to July present year (Fritts, 1976).

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

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Patrick CHIROIU, Cristian ARDELEAN

In the first part of the analysis we extracted the absolute ring widths
and crossdated the cores. After the standardization process we built up the
residual chronology which spreads between 1850 and 2010, and which
illustrates the evolution of the growth index of the black pine of Banat (Fig.
2). The calibration between the growth index and the meteorological data
from the Băile Herculane Meteorological Station for the 1976 – 2010 time
span, was processed by applying a linear regression function (Tissescu,
2001, Popa, 2004)(Fig.3). Based on this equation we reconstructed the
mean annual precipitation value curve (from July to July) (Fig. 4).

Fig. 2. Residual chronology for Pinus nigra var. banatica between 1850 – 2010 in the
Domogled Massif –Mehedinţi Mountains

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 Reconstruction on rainfall regime in Mehedinți Mt. for the last 150 years using dendrochronology

Fig. 3. Overlapping of the annual precipitation graph and the residual chronology in order
to establish the calibration equation.

Regarding the high frequency analysis (annual scale), we established

some maximum and minimum points, meaning precipitation values over
1200 mm. (1885, 1900, 1915, 1920, 1942, 1970, 1976), and under 800 mm.
(1905, 1909, 1947, 1963). We did not take into consideration in this
analysis the precipitation values for the period between 1976 an 2008,
because these values were not a result of our study.

Fig. 4. Reconstruction of annual precipitation values between 1850 – 2010, after

calibration.

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Patrick CHIROIU, Cristian ARDELEAN

Fig. 5 Reconstructed annual precipitation values and identification of extreme –

maximum and minimum – years.

Fig. 6. General precipitation trend for the time span 1850 – 2010 in the domogled Massif.

The low frequency analysis (century scale) shows that the general
trend for the annual amount of precipitation is descending (Fig. 6), fact that
is confirmed by the general evolution of precipitation for continental and
global scales.
To assert that the research took into account every influence on the
forest community of the Domogled Mountain, we must briefly refer to the
wildfire problem. According to Török-Oance M. şi Török-Oance R. (2002),
in August 2000 a significant forest fire took place in the area where the
sampling for this study was made. Taking a closer look at the tree-ring
related to the year 2000 we notice that this one is very narrow compared to

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 Reconstruction on rainfall regime in Mehedinți Mt. for the last 150 years using dendrochronology

the neighboring rings, especially in the latewood (which forms in August).

The lack of cross-sections of tree trunks limits the understanding of fire
occurence, thereby we had to assume that very narrow rings (especially
latewood) compared to neighboring rings, could be associated with
wildfires. The rings that we found astonishingly narrow are related to
following years: 1905, 1908, 1943, 1962, 1984, 1987 şi 1993. Analyzing
only the samples available for this study we will not be able to prove this
hypothesis, therefore we plan an upcoming research with cross-sections and
sections sampled from fire scars that probably will answer some of the
remaining questions.
It is also necesary to discuss the period between 1943 – 1955 which
seems to reveal a further problem. Almost every sample shows a growth
supression in the above mentioned period, with a series of very narrow
succesive rings (Fig. 7). The cause of this growth supression is not clear,
but there could be a few credible explanations. First and most simple
version is associating the narrow rings with a dry period that spanned over
more than a decade. This hypothesis is the most improbable because of the
fact that there are some few pines whose rings that do not manifest this
anomaly. The second explanation could be the manifestation of an
catastrophic fire that could have taken place in 1943 and which serriously
affected the trees’ canopies, followed by a recovery period (Schweingruber,
2008). Supporting this idea, is the fact that the narrow-ring-sequence starts
at the same year for every tree, but lasts longer at some of them and less at
others, which could mean that some trees were more affected and others
less. If this supposition proves to be true, than the climatic reconstruction is
not valid for the period between 1943 – 1955. A third supposition, that we
cannot exclude is an insect invasion that could have been affected the pine
tree forest of the domogled Mountain.
Without having any historical data to confirm none of these
versions, and regarding the narrow ring evidence like the one for the year
2000 (there are studies dealing with the great forest fire), we will try to find
an answer on the frequency and magnitude of the Domogled Mountain
wildfires in an upcoming approach.

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Patrick CHIROIU, Cristian ARDELEAN

Fig. 7. Detail of the residual chronology that shows the narrow ring sector between 1943
– 1955 (above). Detail of a sampled core with the same period (below,left). Detail of the
Skeleton Plot with the highlighted sectors according to the same period (below,right).

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