Climate Growth Response of High Altitude Trees from Eastern Nepal Himalaya

-Parveen Kumar Chhetri

Today, I got chance to read a paper entitled `Growth climate response at high elevation: comparing Alps and Himalayas` by Tenca, A. and M. Carrer, which was published in proceeding of TRACE 2009.

Authors have collected tree ring samples of Abies spectabilis (Himalayan fir) and Betula utilis (Himalayan birch) from Khumbu valley near Mount Everest at elevation range from 3800 m – 4100 m. This is the first time anyone has tried to study the climate response of trees from treeline area of Nepal. I have already discussed many times in my previous blog posts that Abies is the most studied species from Nepal, and Betula is the one of the list one. I have also collected sample of Betula from treeline area of Langtang region in 2008 but still have to work on these samples. Currently, I am working on Abies samples of treeline of Barun valley, Makalu region collected in 2010. This valley is located about 30 km eastward of Khumbu valley. So, I am very interest to know how the tree rings of Khumbu are responding to climate.  

Authors have tried to compare the chronology of Abies and Betula from Himalaya with the Larch and Pine chronology of Alps. So far, very few studies have compared Nepal tree ring chronologies with other similar climatic condition areas. This paper has mentioned that in Birch is more sensitive to climate and suitable for comparison study than the Fir. However, lack of long term climate data from the region is constrained in comparison. I would like to compare Abies chronology of Barun Valley with Abies chronology of Khumbu Valley to see the similarity in upcoming post.  

This paper can be found online at: ftp://ftp.wsl.ch/pub/gaertner/Trace_Volumes/Vol_8_PDF/Tenca_Carrer_TraceVol_8.pdf

Proceeding is available online at:

http://ebooks.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/faces/viewItemFullPage.jsp?itemId=escidoc:16018