Ring width records year-to-year moisture and reveals cyclic drought patterns.

Evidence

Where a ring is very narrow it shows a year of little moisture so that the tree did not have much help in its growth. Where the rings are wide, you are told the year was a good year for this tree with much moisture and sun to help it grow. A tree may often show clusters of narrow rings and other clusters of wide rings, showing that years of drought usually came in cycles or bunches as also did good years of moisture and growth. — Vinson Brown, Reading the Woods, 119

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Tree rings function as interpretable historical records on the landscape. — Vinson Brown, Reading the Woods: Seeing More in…, 116; Natural sounds like wind and rain are recognized through their statistical patterns — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 3280; Microclimate inside a forest gap depends on gap diameter relative to tree height. — S. T. A. Pickett and P. S. White, eds., The Ecology of Natural Disturbance and…, 164 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Tree rings function as interpretable historical records on the landscape. #corroborates (1.00) — Vinson Brown, Reading the Woods, 116
• Growth rings form from the seasonal contrast between thin-walled springwood and thick-walled summerwood cells. #expands (1.00) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 501
• Every major fire year coincided with summer or summer-to-fall drought #exemplifies (1.00) — Miron L. Heinselman, Fire in the Virgin Forests of the…, 238
• Undergrowth density and plant spacing reveal local rainfall levels #complicates (0.90) — Vinson Brown, Reading the Woods, 122
• Natural sounds like wind and rain are recognized through their statistical patterns #complicates (0.80) — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 3280
• Microclimate inside a forest gap depends on gap diameter relative to tree height. #complicates (0.80) — S. T. A. Pickett and P. S. White, eds., The Ecology of Natural Disturbance and…, 164
• Slope aspect and cold-air drainage create sharply different microclimates within yards #complicates (0.80) — Vinson Brown, Reading the Woods, 123
• Temperature autocorrelation reveals weather’s daily and seasonal periodicities. #complicates (0.80)
• Leaf arrangement in layers sets which light regime favors a tree species #complicates (0.80) — S. T. A. Pickett and P. S. White, eds., The Ecology of Natural Disturbance and…, 1318
• Seasonal leaf-fall reveals branch structure enabling sound tree-selection decisions #complicates (0.80) — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 245