MILLENIUM

Duration: 2005-2010

Contact: Matthias Saurer,
Tree-ring cores from larch trees (Larix decidua). Foto: Anne Kress
Tree-ring cores from larch trees (Larix decidua). Foto: Anne Kress
The Millennium project, funded by the European Commission under the 6th Framework Programme, ran from January 2006 to December 2010 and included 40 partner institutions from 16 European countries.

The Millennium project had two central aims:
  1. To produce new, high quality proxy palaeoclimate data and use these to reconstruct the climate of Europe over the last thousand years
  2. To use the climate of the past to better constrain predictions of the climate of the future.
In the PSI-part of the project, we established a 1200-yr multi-isotope chronology from the Swiss Alps. We could provide new information about the past hydrological variability in the region.
  • Kress A., Saurer M., Buntgen U., Treydte K. S., Bugmann H., Siegwolf R. T. W. (2009) Summer temperature dependency of larch budmoth outbreaks revealed by Alpine tree-ring isotope chronologies. Oecologia, 160, 353-365.
  • Kress A., Saurer M., Siegwolf R. T. W., Frank D. C., Esper J., Bugmann H. (2010) A 350 year drought reconstruction from Alpine tree ring stable isotopes. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 24.
  • Saurer M., Cherubini P., Reynolds-Henne C. E., Treydte K. S., Anderson W. T., Siegwolf R. T. W. (2008) An investigation of the common signal in tree ring stable isotope chronologies at temperate sites. Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences, 113.