It's a new year. In this year, we will age another year. In the life of trees, they will form new rings.
Each growing season, a tree will form concentric rings called annual rings, or annual growth rings. These rings grow outward, so newer rings are just beneath the bark, and older rings are near the center of the tree. These rings consist of a light ring, which represents wood that grew in the spring and early summer, and a dark ring, which represents wood that grew in the late summer and fall. These two rings combined represent one year of the tree's life.
You may have heard about counting tree rings to calculate the age of trees.
However, you can also analyze past climatic conditions by looking at how the tree rings grew. In wet and warmer years, tree rings grow wider. In cold and dryer years, the rings are thinner. If the area experienced a forest fire, the tree may have a scar.
Climate change is a forefront issue in today's world. Since trees can live up to hundreds, and thousands of years old, tree rings can provide scientists with historical climatic information. Understanding climate in the past can help us understand climate change we are experiencing in our world today.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/
https://www.pri.org/stories/
https://scied.ucar.edu/
https://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/
