The International Tree-Ring Data Bank (ITRDB) contains hundreds of tree-ring data sets that are useful for the study of climate variability and change, including attribution studies of possible climate forcing by greenhouse gases. The mean annual tree-ring chronologies, however, which are typically used in dendroclimatic studies, do not include associated meta-data that explain how the chronologies were developed from the raw data. This award supports re-standardizing the most important subset of tree-ring data sets for climate studies in the ITRDB, i.e. those that begin on or before 1700. The important features of the tree-ring chronologies will be documented as they relate to the conservation of low-frequency climate variability. These re-standardized tree-ring chronologies will be placed in the ITRDB as a separate, enhanced, full-documented library that will be freely available to the scientific community.
