August-September maximum temperature reconstruction for the Southeastern United States (1760-2022 CE)

Over recent decades, the southeastern United States (Southeast) has become
increasingly well represented by the terrestrial climate proxy record.
However, while the paleo proxy records capture the region’s hydroclimatic
history over the last several centuries, the understanding of near-surface
air temperature variability is confined to the comparatively shorter
observational period (1895-present). Here, we detail the application of
blue intensity (BI) methods on a network of tree-ring collections and
examine their utility for producing robust paleotemperature estimates.
Results indicate that maximum latewood BI (LWBI) chronologies exhibit
positive and temporally stable correlations (r = 0.28- 0.54, p <
0.01) with summer maximum temperatures. As such, we use a network of LWBI
chronologies to reconstruct the August-September average maximum
temperatures for the Southeast spanning the period 1760-2010 CE. Our work
demonstrates the utility of applying novel dendrochronological techniques
to improve the understanding of the longer-term temperature history of the
Southeast.