During her summer travels to her native Belgium, University of Arizona professor Valerie Trouet noticed something that turned casual curiosity into a major scientific discovery.
During her summer travels to her native Belgium, University of Arizona professor Valerie Trouet noticed something that turned casual curiosity into a major scientific discovery. When the sun hid behind the clouds in an overcast sky and people put on sweaters instead of summer clothes, the weather tended to be warm and dry in Italy, Greece and the Balkans, popular summer escapes for tourists from the cooler climates of central and northern Europe.
At the U of A's Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, Trouet studies tree-rings to gather clues about what past climates were like, reading wavy, wooden lines like a linguist might decipher an ancient text. What if, she mused, the key to understanding the capricious summers in Europe could be hidden in trees, silent witnesses to centuries of warm and cold, sunshine, rain and snow?
Trouet assembled an international collaboration to collect tree-ring samples across Europe. The team published its results – the first reconstruction of the jet stream over the past 700 years – on Tuesday in the journal Nature.
Read more at University of Arizona
Image: Members of the research team collected tree ring samples at various locations in Europe, including the Balkan region. (Credit: Courtesy of Valerie Trouet)
