Signal strength and climate calibration of a European tree‐ring isotope network

We present the first European network of tree ring δ 13C and δ 18O, containing 23 sites from Finland to Morocco. Common climate signals are found over broad climatic-ecological ranges. In temperate regions we find positive correlations with summer maximum temperatures and negative correlations with summer precipitation and Palmer Drought Severity Indices (PDSI) with no obvious species-specific differences. Regional δ 13C and δ 18O chronologies share high common variance in year-to-year variations. Long-term variations, however, exhibit differences that may reflect spatial variability in environmental forcings, age trends and/or plant physiological responses to increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration. Rotated principal component analysis (RPCA) and climate field correlations enable the identification of four sub-regions in the δ 18O network - northern and eastern Central Europe, Scandinavia and the western Mediterranean. Regional patterns in the δ 13C network are less clear and are timescale dependent. Our results indicate that future reconstruction efforts should concentrate on δ 18O data in the identified European regions.