"Silent though they are, the trees, it turns out, can speak volumes. The size, density, anatomy and chemistry of each ring reflect the environmental conditions in the year in which it grew. So like ancient scribes, long-lived trees can sensitively record the environmental history of a given place and time."
Since its founding in 1975, the Tree Ring Lab has led the global effort to expand the use of tree-ring science to improve our understanding of past climates and environmental change—and to apply this knowledge to future climate projections.
Exploring new species in new regions, building collaborations around the world, and developing new quantitative techniques, Tree Ring Lab scientists are committed to advancing dendrochronology and paleoclimatology as well as the ethic of good science.
Current research concentrates on the use of tree-ring data networks to study regional climate, global climate teleconnections, and anthropogenic impacts on forest growth.
Founded in 1975, the LDEO Tree Ring Lab turned 50 in 2025, marked by a special colloquium.
Over 50 years, the LDEO Tree Ring Lab has made significant scientific contributions across the globe.
Tree Ring Lab Principal Investigators & Staff
Adjunct Senior Research Scientist
Lecturer, MS in Sustainability Management
Lamont Research Professor
Co-Director, MS in Sustainability Science
Drought Atlases
Drought atlases are extensive, centuries-long records of wet and dry periods for a given region, derived from the data contained in tree rings.
Ed Cook and his colleagues published the first of these, the North American Drought Atlas (2004), followed by the Monsoon Asia Drought Atlas (2010), and the Old World Drought Atlas (2015), Eastern Australia and New Zealand Drought Atlas (2015), and South American Drought Atlas (2020).
Subsequent studies building on the atlases have yielded new insights into how droughts may have adversely affected past civilizations, and the increasingly apparent role of human-induced warming on modern climate.
Scientists across a range of research disciplines use drought atlases to improve understanding of climate phenomena, determine patterns of climate variability back in time, and improve predictions of future climate scenarios.
Drought atlases provide critical information to governments for decision-making and policy, as well as to those working in finance, industry, and non-governmental organizations on matters related to water, the environment, and sustainability.
Historians also find drought atlases to be extremely useful, too. Through research at Lamont, we’ve learned there is an association between both the rise and the fall of certain civilizations and peoples and variations in wetness and dryness.
History of the Tree Ring Lab
The Lab’s tree ring work in the U.S. Southwest documents a history of drought. Ed Cook (above) published a landmark paper in 2004 describing past megadroughts that extended for hundreds of years. Later work with bristlecone pines tracked 1,100 years of El Nino/La Nina fluctuations. Photo: Paul Krusic
Learn more about the Tree Ring Lab's history.
Why We Need to Preserve Maritime Forests
Microscopic World of Wood
"I want to show the microscopic world of wood and its incredible beauty. Each species has its own characteristics, and by measuring their forms and structures, the trees are giving us amazing information about the environments in which they were growing all of their lives." —Lamont Tree Ring Lab dendroanatomist Arturo Pacheco-Solana
Image Carousel with 5 slides
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Slide 1: Wood anatomy detail in Alnus sp. pith. Sample collected at Twelve Summit, Alaska (2011). Anatomical microsection prepared at LDEO Tree Ring Lab by Arturo Pacheco-Solana.
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Slide 2: Wood anatomy detail in Betula sp. bark. Sample collected at Twelve Summit, Alaska (2011). Anatomical microsection prepared at LDEO Tree Ring Lab by Arturo Pacheco-Solana.
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Slide 3: Wood anatomy of White Oak (Quercus alba). Sample collected within the Lamont Sanctuary Forest, New York (2021). Anatomical microsection prepared at LDEO Tree Ring Lab by Mukund Palat-Rao.
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Slide 4: Wood anatomy of Red Oak (Quercus rubra). Sample collected within the Lamont Sanctuary Forest, New York (2021). Anatomical microsection prepared at LDEO Tree Ring Lab by Arturo Pacheco-Solana.
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Slide 5: Wood anatomy of Amburana cearensis. Sample collected at Madidi National Park, Bolivia (2019). Anatomical microsection prepared at LDEO Tree Ring Lab by Rose Oelkers.
Wood Sample Preparation for Microscopic Analysis
Tree-Ring Expeditions (TREX)
Tree-ring scientist Rose Oelkers, when an undergraduate student at William Paterson University, cores a tree at High Point State Park for a Hydrology course. Credit: Nicole Davi
TREX offers six labs geared toward community college and undergraduate instructors and students to become immersed in the field of dendrochronology, using many of the same tools and strategies that tree-ring scientists use. Students explore important tree-ring sites, measuring and evaluating data from those sites, and using online research and analysis tools and databanks. They also hear from scientists who have led research projects, learning how they got started in the field, what motivates them, and what advice they have for students interested in scientific careers.