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The PARC Tree-Ring Lab is housed with the Prairie
Adaptation Research Collaborative (PARC), a climate change research center at
the
University
of Regina
(U of R). Researchers in our lab have built a network of tree-ring chronologies
that span the montane, boreal and island forests of
Alberta,
Saskatchewan,
and the
Northwest Territories
and northern
Montana
and North Dakota.
In this predominantly sub-humid region, in the rainshadow of the
Rocky Mountains,
annual tree growth is limited mostly by available soil moisture. Thus our
moisture-sensitive tree-ring chronologies are proxies of seasonal and annual
hydroclimate and hydrology. They have been applied to the reconstruction of
precipitation, drought indices, stream flow, and groundwater levels. The
inter-annual to multi-decadal variability in hydroclimate recorded by the tree
rings informs our understanding of the climate of the western interior,
projections of future climate, reference hydrology and climate derived from
instrumental records, and conventional water management and planning that
assumes a sufficient and stationary water supply.

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