ISONET: 400 years of annual reconstructions of European climate variability using a high resolution isotopic network

• Research unit: EU RFP
• Project number: 01.0499-1

Key words (English)

Environmental Protection; Forecasting; Meteorology; Resources of the Sea; Fisheries

Alternative project number (English)

EU project number: EVK2-CT-2002-00147

Research programs (English)

EU-programme: 5. Frame Research Programme - 1.4a.2 Global change, climate and biodiversity

Short description (English)

See abstract

Abstract (English)

ISONET will improve greatly our understanding of European climate systems providing independent quantitative data for model verification & policy making. A network of 24 sites provides dendro chronological coverage from Iberia to Fennoscandia, Caledonia and the Tyrol. The stable isotope (C, H, O) ratios of these annually resolved time series will be analysed and in conjunction with non-linear process models, developed within this project, to reconstruct past climate regimes (temperature, relative humidity & precipitation characteristics) for the last 400years. Climate variability is addressed on three timescales; decade-century (source water/air mass dominance); inter-annual (quantifying baseline variability, extreme events & recent trends); and intra-annual (high resolution exploration of seasonality signals within tree-rings). ISONET goes far beyond existing tree-ring analyses in its spatial process based investigation and interpretation.

References in databases (English)

Swiss Database: Euro-DB of the
State Secretariat for Education and Research
Hallwylstrasse 4
CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland
Tel. [phone]
Swiss Project-Number: 01.0499-1