The International Tree-Ring Data Bank at Fifty: Status of Stewardship for Future Scientific Discovery Tree-Ring Research

Marking its 50th year in 2024, the International Tree-Ring Databank (ITRDB) is a lasting and invaluable scientific resource, composed of over 6000 tree-ring chronology sites and more than 9000 publicly available measurement data files. It is the central global repository for tree-ring chronologies and associated measurements, providing the foundation for centennial to millennial length climate reconstructions, including large-scale spatially gridded datasets and hundreds of studies on earth systems, ecological processes, and societal responses to global change. As the stewards of the ITRDB, we report on significant progress made to ensure its vitality in an era of big data, with all sites and associated measurement files meeting FAIR data standards, including citable DOIs and the achievement of machine readability via computing languages such as R and other software. This progress is thanks in large part to the global dendrochronological community for their collaborations on data checking and software development. It is a time to celebrate the repository and the tree-ring community that had the foresight and generosity to create and contribute to it. We look forward to another 50 years of innovation and insight from the community, and to maintaining the ITRDB as an ever-growing network of tree-ring chronology sites.