A Multi-Millennial Drought Reconstruction for West-Central New Mexico Using Rocky Mountain Juniper (<i>Juniperus scopulorum</i>, Sarg.)

<p>A new multi-millennial tree-ring record from living and remnant Rocky Mountain juniper (<em>Juniperus scopulorum</em>, Sarg.) wood from Candelaria in west-central New Mexico is used to determine the temporal and spatial variability of scPDSI over the past two millennia (B.C. 492 to A.D. 2014). Our record indicates extreme drought events found within other hydroclimatic proxy records in the Colorado Plateau region spanning the time period (16^th century and 2^nd century megadroughts). By ranking the extreme drought events by magnitude, duration, intensity, and overall score, the most extreme drought events of this record are compared to drought events illustrated within the proxy records of the region. Our new record contains a 100-year drought period, 850–950 A.D. not documented within these records. We hypothesize that this drought period is equally severe as the 2^nd century and 16^th century droughts and was restricted to the southern portions of the Colorado Plateau and in low elevation areas of the region. Published hydroclimatic research help designate the severity of these drought events, and our findings suggest that the American Southwest should anticipate comparable drought events in the predicted warmer and drier future.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science (MS)

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Geography and Geology

Year dc:date.available

2017

Author dc:creator

• Oliver, Joshua S.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Grant L. Harley
• Franklin T. Heitmuller
• George T. Raber

• Dendroclimatology
• Climatology
• Dendrochronology
• Water Resources
• Southwest United States
• Climate
• Water Resource Management

Repository record dc:identifier

https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/293

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:aquila.usm.edu:masters_theses-1317