Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c4f8m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T03:00:02.049Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Tree-Ring Dating of Extreme Lake Levels at the Subarctic–Boreal Interface

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Yves Bégin
Yves Bégin*
Affiliation:
Centre d'études nordiques, Université Laval, Ste-Foy, Québec, Canada G1K 7P4
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The dates of extreme water levels of two large lakes in northern Quebec have been recorded over the last century by ice scars on shoreline trees and sequences of reaction wood in shore trees tilted by wave erosion. Ice-scar chronologies indicate high water levels in spring, whereas tree-tilting by waves is caused by summer high waters. A major increase in both the amplitude and frequency of ice floods occurred in the 1930s. No such change was indicated by the tree-tilting chronologies, but wave erosion occurred in exceptionally rainy years. According to the modern record, spring lake-level rise is due to increased snowfalls since the 1930s. However, the absence of erosional marks in a large number of years since 1930 suggests a high frequency of low-water-level years resulting from dry conditions. Intercalary years with very large numbers of marked trees (e.g., 1935) indicate that the interannual range of summer lake levels has increased since the 1930s. Increased lake-flood frequency is postulated to be related to a slower expansion of arctic anticyclones, favoring the passage of cyclonic air masses over the area and resulting in abundant snowfall in early winter. Conditions in summer are due to the rate of weakening of the anticyclones controlling the position of the arctic front in summer. This position influences the path of the cyclonic air masses, which control summer precipitation and consequently, summer lake levels in the area.

Keywords

tree ringdendrochronologyhydrologysubarcticsnowlake levelsice scarreaction wooderosionshorewaves
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 55 , Issue 2 , March 2001 , pp. 133 - 139
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alestalo, J., (1971). Dendrochronological interpretation of geomorphic processes. Fennia 105, 1–140.Google Scholar
Arseneault, D., Payette, S., (1997). Reconstruction of millennial forest dynamics from tree remains in a subarctic tree line peatland. Ecology 78, 1873–1883.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barry, R.G., (1967). Seasonal location of the Arctic front over North America. Geographical Bulletin 9, 79–95.Google Scholar
Bégin, Y., Filion, L., (1995). A downward expansion of shoreline shrubs at Lake Bienville (subarctic Québec). Geomorphology 13, 271–282.Google Scholar
Bégin, Y., Payette, S., (1988). Dendroecological evidence of subarctic lake-level changes during the last three centuries in subarctic Québec. Quaternary Research 30, 210–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradley, R.S., Diaz, H.F., Eischeid, J.K., Jones, P.D., Kelly, P.M., Goodess, C.M., (1987). Precipitation fluctuations over Northern Hemisphere land areas since the mid-19th century. Science 237, 171–175.Google Scholar
Fritts, H.C., (1976). Tree Rings and Climate. Academic Press, London.Google Scholar
Hupp, C.R., (1988). Plant ecological aspects of flood geomorphology and paleoflood history. Baker, V.R., Kochel, R.C., Patton, P.C. Flood Geomorphology Wiley, New York.335–356.Google Scholar
Karl, T.R., Groisman, P.Y., Knight, R.W., Heim, R.R. Jr., (1993). Recent variations of snow cover and snowfall in North America and their relationship to precipitation and temperature variations. Journal of Climate 6, 1327–1344.Google Scholar
Lepage, H., Bégin, Y., (1996). Dendrochronological analysis of extreme water level events at lake Bienville, Subarctic Québec. Arctic and Alpine Research 28, 78–85.Google Scholar
Morin, H., Payette, S., (1986). La dynamique récent des combes à neige du golfe de Richmond (Québec nordique): Une analyse dendrochronologique. Canadian Journal of Botany 64, 2113–2119.Google Scholar
Payette, S., (1980). Les grandes crues glacielles de la rivière aux Feuilles (Nouveau-Québec): Une analyse dendrochronologique. Naturaliste Canadien 107, 215–225.Google Scholar
Payette, S., Delwaide, A., (1991). Variations séculaires du niveau d'eau dans le bassin de la rivière Boniface (Québec nordique): Une analyse dendrochronologique. Géographie Physique et Quaternaire 45, 59–67.Google Scholar
Payette, S., (1983). The forest tundra and the present tree-lines of the northern Québec–Labrador Peninsula. Nordicana 47, 3–23.Google Scholar
Rouse, W.R., (1991). Impacts of Hudson Bay on the terrestrial climate of the Hudson Bay Lowlands. Arctic and Alpine Research 23, 24–30.Google Scholar
Schindler, D.W., Beaty, K.G., Fee, E.J., Cruikshank, D.R., DeBruyn, E.R., Findlay, D.L., Linsey, G.A., Stainton, M.P., Turner, M.A., (1990). Effects of climatic warming on lakes of the central boreal forest. Science 250, 967–970.Google Scholar
Schulman, E., (1945). Runoff histories in tree rings of the Pacific slope. The Geographical Review 35, 59–73.Google Scholar
Schweingruber, F.H., (1996). Tree rings and environment: Dendroecology. Influence of Water: Dendrohydrology. p. 131–181.Google Scholar
Scott, P.A., Fayle, D.C.F., Bentley, C.V., Hansell, R.I.C., (1988). Large-scale changes in atmospheric circulation interpreted from patterns of tree growth at Churchill, Manitoba, Canada. Arctic and Alpine Research 20, 199–211.Google Scholar
Scurfield, G., (1973). Reaction wood: Its structure and function. Science 179, 647–655.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shroder, J.F., (1978). Dendrogeomorphological analysis of mass movement on Table Cliffs Plateau, Utah. Quaternary Research 9, 168–185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sigafoos, C. R. (1964)., Botanical Evidence of Floods and Flood-Plain Deposition . United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 485-A, 35 pp.Google Scholar
Stockton, C.W., Fritts, H.C., (1973). Long-term reconstruction of water level changes for Lake Athabasca by analysis of tree rings. Water Resources Bulletin 9, 1006–1027.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stockton, C.W., (1990). Climatic, hydrologic and water supply inferences from tree rings. Civil Engineering Practice 5, 37–52.Google Scholar
Stockton, C.W., Boggess, W., (1980). Tree rings: A proxy data source for hydrologic forecasting. Unified river basin management American Water Resources Association. Symposium Proceedings, May 4–7, 1980, Gatlinburg, Tennessee. p. 609–624.Google Scholar
Tardif, J., Bergeron, Y., (1997). Ice-flood history reconstructed with tree-rings from the southern boreal forest limit, western Québec. The Holocene 7, 291–300.Google Scholar
Wynne, R.H., Lillesand, T.M., Clayton, M.K., Magnuson, J.J., (1998). Satellite monitoring of lake ice breakup on the Laurentian Shield (1980–1994). Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing 64, 607–617.Google Scholar
Ye, H.C., Cho, H.R., Gustafson, P.E., (1998). The changes in Russian winter snow accumulation during 1936–1983 and its spatial patterns. Journal of Climate 11, 856–863.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar