The study of tree rings by the World Agroforestry Centre’s is providing vital information on past, present and future climatic conditions.

An article in Coastweek explains the challenges of farmers, such as James Ochola in Western Keny,a who grows maize, millet, beans and groundnut on his 2 acres. Ochola is facing crop failure as a result of poor soil fertility and unpredictable weather patterns brought about by climate change.

The study of tree rings – known as dendrochronology – is being advanced through the World Agroforestry Centre’s dendrochronology laboratory in Nairobi, Kenya with the aim of helping farmers such as Ochola better plan for future weather conditions. At the laboratory, scientists are mapping out climate conditions of the past to help provide accurate early warnings for climate variability in the future.

“Trees are a repository of knowledge and can be used to gather climatic conditions by looking at the rings in a cross-section of a tree trunk,” says Aster Gebrekirstos, TITLE.

These tree rings are nature’s ‘history books’, providing information on how past climates have impacted on tree growth, agroforestry systems and forest development. They also show hydrological fluctuations in relation to climate change and past and present wild fire patterns.

Data on tree rings can be used to help predict which trees are more likely to survive drought. It can also determine if “the climatic conditions experienced are due to human activity or just part of a longer history of cyclical climatic change,” says the article.

Dr. Isaiah Nyandega from the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Nairobi believes there is a need to appreciate grown trees in the same way that elders in the community are appreciated for holding historical knowledge.

Read the full story: Kenyan scientists set up laboratory on climate change

See also:

Dendrochronology Lab at the World Agroforestry Centre in Nairobi

Tree rings link climate and carbon in Africa