How do scientists use tree rings?
Tree rings are one of Mother Nature’s climatological record books that researchers can examine to see how the climate of the past looked. Every year, a growing tree produces a “ring” which represents the new growth that occurs during the warm season, along with the very slow growth of the trunk that occurs during the cold season. By counting these rings, researchers can find out how old these trees are and therefore know when these rings were created. Favorable growing seasons are represented by wide rings, while poor growing seasons, due to cold summers or due to prolonged drought, cause very tight rings. The scientists compare the tree ring characteristics to the climate data gathered by humans over the past 100 years. Based on how the rings are oriented and shaped, statistical models are used to reconstruct climate data past the human record, going back hundreds of years. Individual trees have their own personal histories, but a group of 30-40 tree ring samples from trees in the sam
