Ulf Büntgen of the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL will present "Frontiers in Tree-ring Research at the Interface of Archaeology, Climatology and Ecology" at 3:30 p.m., Oct. 30 in the Hardin Hall auditorium. The seminar is free and open to the public.
In this presentation, Büntgen will not only exhibit the potential of modern tree-ring research that often benefits from massive sample replication, but will also emphasize data-related and methodological-induced limitations. In this regard, Büntgen will stress drawbacks in our understanding of past climate variability at multi-centennial to millennial time scales, with a particular emphasis on historical drought estimates. He will advocate for interdisciplinary approaches including aspects of archaeology, climatology and ecology. Finally, Büntgen will provide timely examples of dendrochronological contributions beyond their traditional research foci, where tree-ring parameters might be able to offer additional insight into biological, epidemiological, mycological and even oceanographic forefront investigations.
Büntgen is head of the Dendroecology Group at the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, where he has been employed since 2003. He studied geography, geology and cartography at the University of Bonn, Germany (1999-2003), and obtained his Ph.D. (2006) and Habilitation (2011) at the University of Bern, Switzerland.
He is conducting fieldwork all over the globe to provide answers to his main research questions: How did and does climate change? How did and do ecosystems respond to such changes?
More details at: http://go.unl.edu/2j3t