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Tree Ring Response of White Oak to Climate and Air Pollution near the Ohio River Valley¹

ABSTRACT

White oak (Quercus alba L.) tree ring chronologies were compared among five sites representing an apparent gradient of industrial air pollution emitted from sources in a portion of the Ohio River Valley near the southern Ohio-northern Kentucky border. Response functions relating standardized ring-width indices with principal components of climate for sites nearest the industrial area exhibited a strong nonclimatic influence from 1930 to 1978, which did not appear at more remote sites or in the 30 yr before 1930. Response functions for the entire 1900–1978 period declined in reliability to predict indices from climate at sites near the pollution sources, as did the response function derived for the most remote site when used to predict indices at the other four sites. Evidence for nonclimatic influence on indices appeared at all sites between about 1950 and 1966. The altered patterns of tree ring response to climate add to a growing body of evidence for broad-scale changes in tree growth in the Northeast that may be associated with air pollution.

Key Words: Quercus alba • acid rain • ozone • sulfur dioxide • tree growth • principal components

¹ Salaries and research support provided by a cooperative aid agreement with the U.S. Forest Service Northeastern Forest Exp. Stn. and by state and federal funds appropriated to the Ohio Agric. Res. and Dev. Center, The Ohio State Univ. Journal article no. 80-84. This article was written and prepared by U.S. government employees on official time and is therefore in the public domain. The authors wish to acknowledge the technical support of N. H. McCarthy throughout this study.

² Associate professor of forestry, Lab. for Environ. Studies, Ohio Agric. Res. and Dev. Center and Ohio State Univ., Wooster, OH 44691, and project leader, Northeastern Forest Ex. Stn., Delaware, OH 43015.

Received for publication June 9, 1984.