Lack of cold temperatures is driving recent high-summer warming in the southern Rocky Mountains.

Abstract

We present a 483-year-long tree-ring chronology from a high-elevation Engelmann spruce stand in central Colorado. Over 800,000 density measurements produce a maximum latewood density (MXD) record, which together with tree-ring widths, is used to assess the climatic influences on radial tree growth. Variability in MXD is strongly related to local and regional August maximum temperatures (T_max) for 127 years of overlapping instrumental climate data. A single-predictor reconstruction based on the MXD record explains > 50% of the variance in regional August T_max is presented and considered robust for the period 1662-2021. The estimates of past temperature variability display phases of continuous cold conditions that are beyond the range of the instrumental record, including the 1830s. Our results further indicate that August T_max have been higher since the early 1990s than for any other 30-year period in the past 350 years. This recent increase occurs on top of multi-centennial warming, and appears to be driven mainly by less frequent cold summers rather than an increase in warm extremes.