This award will help produce a multi-millennial tree-ring record of Silver Pine from South Island of New Zealand. This is an area of the southern hemisphere where long Holocene climate records are rare. Based upon an already established temperature sensitivity of this species, the long chronology will be used to reconstruct a ~3,000 year record of southern hemisphere summer temperatures. This record will provide estimates of natural variability prior to the 20th century. Field work will be undertaken to collect samples of ancient Silver Pine and sub-fossil wood from Oroko Swamp and areas previously forested and currently being cleared and converted to dairy farms. This research is helping salvage an important climate archive that would otherwise be lost due to land development.
