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Updated: Jul 20, 2026

The Calibration and Use of Capacitance Sensors to Monitor Stem Water Content in Trees
Published on: December 27, 2017
Tropical rain forest tree growth and atmospheric carbon dynamics linked to interannual temperature variation during
D A Clark1, S C Piper, C D Keeling
1Department of Biology, University of Missouri, St. Louis, MO 63121, USA. daclark@sloth.ots.ac.cr
Abstract:
During 1984-2000, canopy tree growth in old-growth tropical rain forest at La Selva, Costa Rica, varied >2-fold among years. The trees' annual diameter increments in this 16-yr period were negatively correlated with annual means of daily minimum temperatures. The tree growth variations also negatively covaried with the net carbon exchange of the terrestrial tropics as a whole, as inferred from nearly pole-to-pole measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO(2)) interpreted by an inverse tracer-transport model. Strong reductions in tree growth and large inferred tropical releases of CO(2) to the atmosphere occurred during the record-hot 1997-1998 El Niño. These and other recent findings are consistent with decreased net primary production in tropical forests in the warmer years of the last two decades. As has been projected by recent process model studies, such a sensitivity of tropical forest productivity to on-going climate change would accelerate the rate of atmospheric CO(2) accumulation.
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