Annual rings are acclaimed in representing natural climate
archives. For the temperate latitudes it is known that the
growth of these annual rings depend mainly on temperature and
precipitation. In the tropics, however, with only slight
seasonal variations, the correlation is not so evident. Now
scientists of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences and
their colleagues of the Australian National University have been
able to prove that tree growth in north-east Australia depends
mainly on the annual precipitation. Furthermore, in the recent
edition of the journal "Climate Dynamics" they showed that
growth rings are most suitable as climate proxy data for the
registration of the precipitation dynamics in Australia.
Australia is periodically influenced by the climate fluctuations
ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) and, thus, regularly
afflicted by strong periods of drought with bush fires and
flooding due to extremely strong rain fall. In order to more
precisely investigate the, for the Australians so im