Temperature-growth divergence in white spruce forests of Old Crow Flats, Yukon Territory, and adjacent regions of northwestern North America

We present a new 23‐site network of white spruce ring‐width chronologies near boreal treeline in Old Crow Flats, Yukon Territory, Canada. Most chronologies span the last 300 years and some reach the mid‐16th century. The chronologies exhibit coherent growth patterns before the 1930s. However, since the 1930s, they diverge in trend and exhibit one of two contrasting, but well‐replicated patterns we call Group 1 and Group 2. Over the instrumental period (1930–2007) Group 1 sites were inversely correlated with previous‐year July temperatures while Group 2 sites were positively correlated with growth‐year June temperatures. At the broader northwestern North America (NWNA) scale, we find that the Group 1 and Group 2 patterns are common to a number of white spruce chronologies, which we call NWNA 1 and NWNA 2 chronologies. The NWNA 1 and NWNA 2 chronologies also share a single coherent growth pattern prior to their divergence (ca. 1950s). Comparison of the NWNA 1/NWNA 2 chronologies against gridded 20th‐century temperatures for NWNA and reconstructed northern hemisphere summer temperatures (ad 1300–2000) indicates that all sites responded positively to temperature prior to the mid‐20th century (at least back to ad 1300), but that some changed to a negative response (NWNA 1) while others maintained a positive response (NWNA 2). The spatial extent of divergence implies a large‐scale forcing. As the divergence appears to be restricted to the 20th century, we suggest that the temperature response shift represents a moisture stress caused by an anomalously warm, dry 20th‐century climate in NWNA, as indicated by paleoclimatic records. However, because some sites do not diverge and are located within a few kilometres of divergent sites, we speculate that site‐level factors have been important in determining the susceptibility of sites to the large‐scale drivers of divergence.