date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 09:20:46 +0200
from: Fritz Schweingruber <fritz.schweingruber@wsl.ch>
to: k.briffa@uea.ac.uk

Dear Keith
It was a good idea to sensilibise some Americans for boreal dendroclimatic
studies. I think that also the densitometric labs from Marseill (Tessier)
and Quebec (Payette) should be included.
It is a fascinating idea to bring all dendroclimatologists und on umbrella
with two topics:
- what about the last 40 years?
- millenial growth/climate fluctuations

One problem is still not solved or even not discussed. The European
foresters clearly say that forests are growing more and more - no downward
trend since 1960. We should bring this problem on the table. Recently
several foresters at the WSL  addressed the proplem.
I initiated now a PhD. thesis in this respect. I gatherd hundrets of modern
(mostly ring width) chronologies from France, Switzerland and Germany from
lowland and subalpine reginos, from dry and normal sites. Burkhard Neuwirth
from Bonn has to address this problem besid the spatial pointer year
analysis.
Perhaps we should include few laboratories with have large data bases.
Yours   Fritz

What do you think, should we address this discrepancy