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Topic · Atmospheric Science

Tree-ring climate responses

Tree-ring climate responses is a research topic within Atmospheric Science. Science Explorer counts 19k research works in it since 1950. 10.1% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers explores the causes and impacts of climate change over the past millennia, focusing on temperature variability, tree ring analysis, historical climate reconstructions, extreme events, and precipitation variability. It encompasses studies on dendrochronology, global warming, and the shifting of tree lines in response to environmental changes.

  • Climate Change
  • Tree Rings
  • Temperature Variability
  • Dendrochronology
  • Global Warming
  • Historical Climate
  • Extreme Events
  • Paleoclimatology
  • Precipitation Variability
  • Tree Line Shifts
Research works
19k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
1.9k
per year above
Top-10% rate
10.1%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+7%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
China
36% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Tree-ring climate responses

Which countries lead Tree-ring climate responses research?

By volume, China and the United States publish the most (1.1k and 551 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 China 1.1k works
  2. 2 United States 551 works
  3. 3 Germany 241 works
  4. 4 Russia 217 works
  5. 5 France 192 works
  6. 6 Spain 177 works
  7. 7 India 146 works
  8. 8 United Kingdom 137 works
  9. 9 Canada 136 works
  10. 10 Italy 120 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

China: 35.6%United States: 18.5%Germany: 8.1%Russia: 7.3%6 others listed: 30.5%36%largest
China1,062 · 35.6%United States551 · 18.5%Germany241 · 8.1%Russia217 · 7.3%6 others listed908 · 30.5%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Tree-ring climate responses research?

By volume in 2022-now, Chinese Academy of Sciences publishes the most Tree-ring climate responses research, followed by Russian Academy of Sciences and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 243 works
  2. 2 Russian Academy of SciencesRussia 113 works
  3. 3 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 73 works
  4. 4 Consejo Superior de Investigaciones CientíficasSpain 49 works
  5. 5 University of Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 48 works
  6. 6 Lanzhou UniversityChina 39 works
  7. 7 Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape ResearchSwitzerland 28 works
  8. 8 Beijing Forestry UniversityChina 27 works
  9. 9 Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'EnvironnementFrance 27 works
  10. 10 Helmholtz Association of German Research CentresGermany 26 works

Who are the leading researchers in Tree-ring climate responses?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Tree-ring climate responses include Philippe Ciais, Peter B. Reich and F. Stuart Chapin.

  1. 1 Philippe Ciais France 237k citations
  2. 2 Peter B. Reich United States 189k citations
  3. 3 F. Stuart Chapin United States 185k citations
  4. 4 Josep Peñuelas Spain 160k citations
  5. 5 Robert B. Jackson United States 149k citations
  6. 6 Markku Kulmala Finland 145k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Tree-ring climate responses?

The most cited paper in Tree-ring climate responses is "Forests and Climate Change: Forcings, Feedbacks, and the Climate Benefits of Forests" (Gordon B. Bonan, 2008), with 6,431 citations. Next come "A review of drought concepts" (5,556) and "Mechanisms of plant survival and mortality during drought: why do some plants survive while others succumb to drought?" (4,540).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Forests and Climate Change: Forcings, Feedbacks, and the Climate Benefits of Forests Gordon B. Bonan · Science 12 Jun 2008 6,431
2 A review of drought concepts Ashok Kumar Mishra, Vijay P. Singh · Journal of Hydrology 12 Jul 2010 5,556
3 Mechanisms of plant survival and mortality during drought: why do some plants survive while others succumb to drought? Nate G. McDowell, William T. Pockman, Craig D. Allen et al. · New Phytologist Open access 14 Apr 2008 4,540
4 Drought under global warming: a review Aiguo Dai · Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change Open access 19 Oct 2010 3,571
5 On the Average Value of Correlated Time Series, with Applications in Dendroclimatology and Hydrometeorology Tom M. L. Wigley, Keith R. Briffa, Philip Douglas Jones · Journal of Climate and Applied Meteorology Feb 1984 3,505
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Tree-ring climate responses research done?

The largest centres of Tree-ring climate responses research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), Lanzhou (China), Nanjing (China) and Paris (France). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Zaragoza, Birmensdorf and Krasnoyarsk.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 403 works
  2. 2 LanzhouChina 76 works
  3. 3 NanjingChina 63 works
  4. 4 ParisFrance 58 works
  5. 5 MoscowRussia 52 works
  6. 6 Xi'anChina 47 works
  7. 7 MadridSpain 36 works
  8. 8 ÜrümqiChina 35 works
  9. 9 PragueCzechia 35 works
  10. 10 BrnoCzechia 35 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. ZaragozaES · 21.5 works493×
  2. BirmensdorfCH · 28.1 works199×
  3. KrasnoyarskRU · 32.4 works27×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Tree-ring climate responses than the world average.

See Tree-ring climate responses on the map

Where is the best place to study Tree-ring climate responses?

Among universities, judged by research, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Basel and Lanzhou University score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%10%20%30%mean 17.64%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →University of BaselUniversity of FreiburgUniversity of Chines…Lanzhou University
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1University of Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 66.913.2%7.9×48 +22.6%
2University of BaselSwitzerland 66.427.0%7.0×10 +5.4%
3Lanzhou UniversityChina 62.311.4%15.1×38 +109.4%
4University of FreiburgGermany 60.021.2%10.4×18 +6.4%
5Technical University of MunichGermany 59.721.5%5.1×17 -3.2%
6University of GöttingenGermany 59.419.9%13.4×18 +11.3%
7ETH ZurichSwitzerland 59.320.1%6.9×18 -35.1%
8Beijing Normal UniversityChina 55.115.8%8.4×25 +3.5%
9Beijing Forestry UniversityChina 54.611.1%25.6×27 +50.8%
10Nanjing University of Information Science and TechnologyChina 54.515.2%10.6×16 +74.2%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Tree-ring climate responses, country by country

Is Tree-ring climate responses research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 7% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Tree-ring climate responses.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Tree-ring climate responses as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.015% in 2024.

still counting0.010%0.020%Tree-ring climate responses0.017% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Tree-ring climate responses over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Tree-ring climate responses10.0% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

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