RELATIONS BETWEEN TREE-RING WIDTHS, CLIMATE, AND ANNUAL AREA BURNED IN THE BOREAL FOREST OF ALBERTA

Ring-width chronologies from three white spruce (Picea glauca (Moench) Voss) and two jack pine (Pinus banksiana Lamb.) sites in the boreal f orest of northern Alberta were constructed to determine whether they c ould provide proxy records of monthly weather, summer fire weather, an d the annual area burned by wildfires in Wood Buffalo National Park. A ll but one of the standard and residual chronologies exhibited signifi cant positive correlations with June precipitation in the growth year, and all but three of the chronologies exhibited positive correlations with precipitation in June, July, or August of the previous year. Thr ee of the residual chronologies also exhibited negative correlations w ith June temperature in the growth year. Four of the standard and resi dual chronologies exhibited significant correlations with the Seasonal Severity Rating fire weather variable from Fort Smith, N.W.T. Four of the standard chronologies and three of the residual chronologies exhi bited significant correlations with the annual area burned in Wood Buf falo National Park. Significant correlations were also found for some of the standard and residual chronologies with fire weather and annual area burned in the previous year. These results suggest that ring wid ths and annual area burned in this portion of the boreal forest are se nsitive to similar weather conditions. Tree-ring records may therefore provide a useful means of examining decadal to centennial length rela tions between climate and annual area burned in the boreal forest.