KMap
David Frank received Bachelors (1996) and Masters (1998) degrees in Geology from the State University of New York in Buffalo where he contributed to projects reconstructing the glacial and climatic history of coastal Alaska using tree rings. After his studies, he worked as a research assistant at the Tree-Ring Lab at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University producing data from tree ring sites collected across the globe. David Frank moved to Switzerland for his doctoral studies at the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL and the University of Bern (2005) reconstructing climate in central Europe and assessing the impacts of climate change on tree growth. After a post-doctoral appointment, he served as the head of the Palaeoclimatology and Dendroclimatology groups at the WSL (2006–2016). Prior to moving to Tucson, David was also a lecturer at the University of Bern and the ETH in Zurich, served as the advisor to graduate students and post-doctoral scholars, and was a co-organizer for dendrochronological fieldweeks. He is a well-cited author with over 100 peer reviewed publications that contribute to improving knowledge of the coupling between long-term environmental variation & tree growth.

VOSviewer

Courses
  • IGC
    Introduction to Global Change

  • ID
    Introduction to Dendrochronology

Grants
  • Funding agency logo
    Collaborative Research: Fresh Water and Heat Fluxes to the Arctic Ocean Modeled with Tree-Ring Proxies

    Co-Investigator (COI)

    2019

    $781.2K
    Active
  • Funding agency logo
    CSBR: Natural History Collections: Safeguarding the World's Largest Dendrochronological Collection

    Co-Investigator (COI)

    2018

    $485.2K
  • Funding agency logo
    Tree-Ring Histories of Fire and Forest Insect Outbreak Regimes

    Principal Investigator (PI)

    2016

    $22.5K
Books
  • A review of 2000 years of paleoclimatic evidence in the mediterranean

    2012

  • Evidence of environmental change from annually resolved proxies with particular reference to dendrochronology and the last millennium

    2012

News
  • Water, Not Temperature, Limits Global Forest Growth as Climate Warms

    2019

  • Study: North American Forests Aren't Saviors From Climate Change

    2016

Publications (166)
Recent
  • The case for adding tree rings to North America’s national forest inventories: an essential tool to guide drawdown of atmospheric CO2

    2022

  • Turgor – a limiting factor for radial growth in mature conifers along an elevational gradient

    2021

  • High-frequency stable isotope signals in uneven-aged forests as proxy for physiological responses to climate in Central Europe

    2021

  • Integrating the evidence for a terrestrial carbon sink caused by increasing atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub>

    2021

  • Stable isotopes of tree rings reveal seasonal-to-decadal patterns during the emergence of a megadrought in the Southwestern US

    2021

  • Integrating the evidence for a terrestrial carbon sink caused by increasing atmospheric CO2

    2021

  • Twentieth century redistribution in climatic drivers of global tree growth

    2019

  • Scientific Merits and Analytical Challenges of Tree‐Ring Densitometry

    2019

  • An interdecadal climate dipole between Northeast Asia and Antarctica over the past five centuries

    2019

  • Quantification of uncertainties in conifer sap flow measured with the thermal dissipation method

    2018

  • The climatic drivers of NDVI and tree-ring based estimates of forest productivity are spatially coherent but temporally decoupled in Northern Hemispheric forests

    2018

  • A Combined Tree Ring and Vegetation Model Assessment of European Forest Growth Sensitivity to Interannual Climate Variability

    2018

  • A Wood Biology Agenda to Support Global Vegetation Modelling

    2018

  • When tree rings go global: challenges and opportunities for retro- and prospective insight

    2018

  • RAPTOR: Row and position tracheid organizer in R

    2018

  • Oxygen isotopes in tree rings are less sensitive to changes in tree size and relative canopy position than carbon isotopes

    2018

  • Intramolecular <sup>13</sup>C analysis of tree rings provides multiple plant ecophysiology signals covering decades

    2018

  • The climatic drivers of normalized difference vegetation index and tree-ring-based estimates of forest productivity are spatially coherent but temporally decoupled in Northern Hemispheric forests

    2018

  • Couplings in cell differentiation kinetics mitigate air temperature influence on conifer wood anatomy

    2018

  • Intramolecular 13 C analysis of tree rings provides multiple plant ecophysiology signals covering decades

    2018

  • An empirical perspective for understanding climate change impacts in Switzerland

    2018

  • Converging Climate Sensitivities of European Forests Between Observed Radial Tree Growth and Vegetation Models

    2017

  • Contribution of climate vs. larch budmoth outbreaks in regulating biomass accumulation in high-elevation forests

    2017

  • Last millennium Northern Hemisphere summer temperatures from tree rings: Part II, spatially resolved reconstructions

    2017

  • Time-varying relationships among oceanic and atmospheric modes: A turning point at around 1940

    2017

  • Ecosystem functioning is enveloped by hydrometeorological variability

    2017

  • 20th century changes in carbon isotopes and water-use efficiency: Tree-ring-based evaluation of the CLM4.5 and LPX-Bern models

    2017

  • Forest diversity promotes individual tree growth in central European forest stands

    2017

  • Improved tree-ring archives will support earth-system science

    2017

  • Cell size and wall dimensions drive distinct variability of earlywood and latewood density in Northern Hemisphere conifers

    2017

  • An intensive tree-ring experience: Connecting education and research during the 25th European Dendroecological Fieldweek (Asturias, Spain)

    2017

  • Responses of sapwood ray parenchyma and non-structural carbohydrates of Pinus sylvestris to drought and long-term irrigation

    2017

  • Dendroecological reconstruction of disturbance history of an old-growth mixed sessile oak–beech forest

    2017

  • European summer temperatures since Roman times

    2016

  • No growth stimulation of Canada's boreal forest under half-century of combined warming and CO inf 2 /inf fertilization

    2016

  • Integrating tree-ring and inventory-based measurements of aboveground biomass growth: research opportunities and carbon cycle consequences from a large snow breakage event in the Swiss Alps

    2016

  • The value of crossdating to retain high-frequency variability, climate signals, and extreme events in environmental proxies

    2016

  • Observed forest sensitivity to climate implies larger reductions in 21st century forest growth

    2016

  • The legacy of disturbance on individual tree and stand-level aboveground biomass accumulation and stocks in primary mountain Picea abies forests

    2016

  • Northern Hemisphere hydroclimate variability over the past twelve centuries

    2016

  • Pattern of xylem phenology in conifers of cold ecosystems at the Northern Hemisphere

    2016

  • Last millennium northern hemisphere summer temperatures from tree rings: Part I: The long term context

    2016

  • Observed forest sensitivity to climate implies large changes in 21st century North American forest growth

    2016

  • Coincidences of climate extremes and anomalous vegetation responses: Comparing tree ring patterns to simulated productivity

    2015

  • Water-use efficiency and transpiration across European forests during the Anthropocene

    2015

  • Old World megadroughts and pluvials during the Common Era

    2015

  • Moisture stress of a hydrological year on tree growth in the Tibetan Plateau and surroundings

    2015

  • Effects of climate extremes on the terrestrial carbon cycle: Concepts, processes and potential future impacts

    2015

  • Forests: Tree rings track climate trade-offs

    2015

  • Climate sensitivity of Mediterranean pine growth reveals distinct east-west dipole

    2015

  • Woody biomass production lags stem-girth increase by over one month in coniferous forests

    2015

  • Synoptic drivers of 400 years of summer temperature and precipitation variability on Mt. Olympus, Greece

    2015

  • Kinetics of tracheid development explain conifer tree-ring structure

    2014

  • Above-ground woody carbon sequestration measured from tree rings is coherent with net ecosystem productivity at five eddy-covariance sites

    2014

  • Forward modelling of tree-ring width and comparison with a global network of tree-ring chronologies

    2014

  • Toward consistent measurements of carbon accumulation: A multi-site assessment of biomass and basal area increment across Europe

    2014

  • Climate-mediated spatiotemporal variability in terrestrial productivity across Europe

    2014

  • Assessing the influence of climate-water table interactions on jack pine and black spruce productivity in Western Central Canada

    2014

  • Inter-hemispheric temperature variability over the past millennium

    2014

  • The influence of sampling design on tree-ring-based quantification of forest growth

    2014

  • Surface air temperature variability reconstructed with tree rings for the Gulf of Alaska over the past 1200 years

    2014

  • Seasonal transfer of oxygen isotopes from precipitation and soil to the tree ring: Source water versus needle water enrichment

    2014

  • Contribution of semi-arid ecosystems to interannual variability of the global carbon cycle

    2014

  • Six centuries of variability and extremes in a coupled marine-terrestrial ecosystem

    2014

  • A tree-ring perspective on the terrestrial carbon cycle

    2014

  • Swiss tree rings reveal warm and wet summers during medieval times

    2014

  • Tree growth response along an elevational gradient: Climate or genetics?

    2013

  • Climatic drivers of hourly to yearly tree radius variations along a 6°C natural warming gradient

    2013

  • Precipitation over the past four centuries in the Dieshan Mountains as inferred from tree rings: An introduction to an HHT-based method

    2013

  • Site- and species-specific responses of forest growth to climate across the European continent

    2013

  • Ameta-analysis of cambiumphenology and growth: Linear and non-linear patterns in conifers of the northern hemisphere

    2013

  • Spectral biases in tree-ring climate proxies

    2013

  • Intra-annual dynamics of non-structural carbohydrates in the cambium of mature conifer trees reflects radial growth demands

    2013

  • Climate extremes and the carbon cycle

    2013

  • Tree-ring-reconstructed summer temperatures from Northwestern North America during the last nine centuries

    2013

  • Solar and volcanic fingerprints in tree-ring chronologies over the past 2000years

    2012

  • Methods to merge overlapping tree-ring isotope series to generate multi-centennial chronologies

    2012

  • Multi-archive summer temperature reconstruction for the European Alps, AD 1053-1996

    2012

  • Tree rings and volcanic cooling

    2012

  • Fading temperature sensitivity of Alpine tree growth at its Mediterranean margin and associated effects on large-scale climate reconstructions

    2012

  • Precipitation variability during the past 400 years in the Xiaolong Mountain (central China) inferred from tree rings

    2012

  • Variability and extremes of northern Scandinavian summer temperatures over the past two millennia

    2012

  • Orbital forcing of tree-ring data

    2012

  • A pan-European summer teleconnection mode recorded by a new temperature reconstruction from the northeastern Mediterranean (ad 1768-2008)

    2012

  • Evidence of environmental change from annually resolved proxies with particular reference to dendrochronology and the last millennium

    2012

  • A review of 2000 years of paleoclimatic evidence in the mediterranean

    2012

  • Erratum: Varying boreal forest response to Arctic environmental change at the Firth River, Alaska (Environmental Research Letters (2011) 6 (045503))

    2011

  • Multiproxy summer and winter surface air temperature field reconstructions for southern South America covering the past centuries

    2011

  • History matters: Ecometrics and integrative climate change biology

    2011

  • 2500 years of European climate variability and human susceptibility

    2011

  • Varying boreal forest response to Arctic environmental change at the Firth River, Alaska

    2011

  • 200 years of European temperature variability: Insights from and tests of the proxy surrogate reconstruction analog method

    2011

  • Impacts of land cover and climate data selection on understanding terrestrial carbon dynamics and the CO <inf>2</inf> airborne fraction

    2011

  • Assessing the spatial signature of European climate reconstructions

    2010

  • Multi-centennial summer and winter precipitation variability in southern South America

    2010

  • Inner Alpine conifer response to 20th century drought swings

    2010

  • Ensemble reconstruction constraints on the global carbon cycle sensitivity to climate

    2010

  • Five centuries of Central European temperature extremes reconstructed from tree-ring density and documentary evidence

    2010

  • Diverse climate sensitivity of Mediterranean tree-ring width and density

    2010

  • Low-frequency noise in δ<sup>13</sup>C and δ<sup>18</sup>O tree ring data: A case study of Pinus uncinata in the Spanish Pyrenees

    2010

  • The early instrumental warm-bias: A solution for long central European temperature series 1760-2007

    2010

  • Climatic warming disrupts recurrent Alpine insect outbreaks

    2010

  • A 350 year drought reconstruction from Alpine tree ring stable isotopes

    2010

  • Tree-ring indicators of German summer drought over the last millennium

    2010

  • A noodle, hockey stick, and spaghetti plate: A perspective on high-resolution paleoclimatology

    2010

  • Ecometrics: The traits that bind the past and present together

    2010

  • Three centuries of Slovakian drought dynamics

    2010

  • Low-frequency noise in δ13C and δ18O tree ring data: A case study of Pinus uncinata in the Spanish Pyrenees

    2010

  • Persistent positive north atlantic oscillation mode dominated the medieval climate anomaly

    2009

  • Complex climate controls on 20th century oak growth in Central-West Germany

    2009

  • Inverse modeling of global and regional CH<inf>4</inf> emissions using SCIAMACHY satellite retrievals

    2009

  • Tree growth and inferred temperature variability at the North American Arctic treeline

    2009

  • Multi-proxy reconstructions of northeastern Pacific sea surface temperature data from trees and Pacific geoduck

    2009

  • The IPCC on a heterogeneous Medieval Warm Period

    2009

  • Impact of climate and CO2 on a millennium-long tree-ring carbon isotope record

    2009

  • Comment on "Late 20th century growth acceleration in Greek firs (Abies cephalonica) from Cephalonica Island, Greece: A CO<inf>2</inf> fertilization effect?"

    2009

  • Frequency-dependent signals in multi-centennial oak vessel data

    2009

  • Species-specific climate sensitivity of tree growth in Central-West Germany

    2009

  • Timing and duration of European larch growing season along altitudinal gradients in the Swiss Alps

    2009

  • Exploration of long-term growth changes using the tree-ring detrending program "Spotty"

    2009

  • Three centuries of insect outbreaks across the European Alps

    2009

  • Divergence pitfalls in tree-ring research

    2009

  • Impact of climate and CO<inf>2</inf> on a millennium-long tree-ring carbon isotope record

    2009

  • Swiss spring plant phenology 2007: Extremes, a multi-century perspective, and changes in temperature sensitivity

    2008

  • Long-term summer temperature variations in the Pyrenees

    2008

  • Testing for tree-ring divergence in the European Alps

    2008

  • Climate signal age effects-Evidence from young and old trees in the Swiss Engadin

    2008

  • Environmental change during the Allerød and Younger Dryas reconstructed from Swiss tree-ring data

    2008

  • Signal strength and climate calibration of a European tree-ring isotope network

    2007

  • Long-term drought severity variations in Morocco

    2007

  • Warmer early instrumental measurements versus colder reconstructed temperatures: shooting at a moving target

    2007

  • 1200 Years of regular outbreaks in alpine insects

    2007

  • Growth responses to climate in a multi-species tree-ring network in the Western Carpathian Tatra Mountains, Poland and Slovakia

    2007

  • Thousand-year-long Chinese time series reveals climatic forcing of decadal locust dynamics

    2007

  • Adjustment for proxy number and coherence in a large-scale temperature reconstruction

    2007

  • A matter of divergence: Tracking recent warming at hemispheric scales using tree ring data

    2007

  • Growth/climate response shift in a long subalpine spruce chronology

    2006

  • 700 years of settlement and building history in the Lötschental, Switzerland

    2006

  • The twentieth century was the wettest period in northern Pakistan over the past millennium

    2006

  • Summer temperature variations in the European Alps, A.D. 755-2004

    2006

  • A 1052-year tree-ring proxy for Alpine summer temperatures

    2005

  • Temperature reconstructions and comparisons with instrumental data from a tree-ring network for the European Alps

    2005

  • Climate: Past ranges and future changes

    2005

  • Effect of scaling and regression on reconstructed temperature amplitude for the past millennium

    2005

  • Synchronous variability changes in Alpine temperature and tree-ring data over the past two centuries

    2005

  • Temperature variability over the past millennium inferred from Northwestern Alaska tree rings

    2005

  • Spatial reconstruction of summer temperatures in Central Europe for the last 500 years using annually resolved proxy records: Problems and opportunities

    2005

  • Characterization and climate response patterns of a high-elevation, multi-species tree-ring network in the European Alps

    2005

  • Reconstructed warm season temperatures for Nome, Seward Peninsula, Alaska

    2004

  • Kunashir (Kuriles) Oak 400-year reconstruction of temperature and relation to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation

    2004

  • Climate reconstructions: Low-frequency ambition and high-frequency ratification

    2004

  • Dendroclimatological evidence for major volcanic events of the past two millennia

    2003

  • 1738 years of Mongolian temperature variability inferred from a tree-ring width chronology of Siberian pine

    2001

  • Spatial response to major volcanic events in or about AD 536, 934 and 1258: Frost rings and other dendrochronological evidence from Mongolia and northern Siberia: Comment on R. B. Stothers, 'volcanic dry fogs, climate cooling, and plague pandemics in Europe and the Middle East' (climatic change, 42, 1999)

    2001

  • Mongolian tree-rings, temperature sensitivity and reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere temperature

    2000

Grants
Citations
H-Index
Patents
News
Books
Opportunities