The potential of intra-annual density information for crossdating of short tree-ring series

Abstract The crossdating of tree-ring series is typically based on tree-ring width sequences, which is a crude abstraction of the growth signal stored in tree rings. In contrast, intra-annual wood density data allows a much more detailed comparison of wood growth processes and new measurement techniques scale well to measure large amounts of samples. Thus, chronologies of intra-annual densitometric curves can be built. Here, we investigate to what extent intra-annual wood density information can improve crossdating. We evaluate different approaches on a data set of Norway spruce trees (Picea abies) and compare the results to standard methods that are based on ring width or maximum density. Our results show that intra-annual densitometric data indeed increases crossdating success rate notably for short tree ring series that cover less than 25 years.