Taxus tree-ring chronologies from southern England reveal western European hydroclimate changes over the past three centuries

Heatwaves and summer droughts across Europe are likely to intensify under anthropogenic global warming thereby affecting ecological and societal systems. To place modern trends and extremes in the context of past natural variability, annually resolved and absolutely dated climate reconstructions are needed. Here, we present a network of 153 yew (Taxus baccata L.) tree-ring width (TRW) series from 22 sites in southern England that cover the past 310 years. Significant positive correlations were found between TRW chronologies and both April-July precipitation totals (r > 0.7) and July drought indices (r > 0.59) back to 1901 CE (p < 0.05). We used a suite of residual and standard TRW chronologies to reconstruct interannual to multi-decadal spring-summer precipitation and mid-summer drought variability over western Europe, respectively. Our yew hydroclimate reconstructions capture the majority of reported summer droughts and pluvials back to 1710 CE. Clusters of severe drought spells occurred in the second half of the 18th and mid-twentieth century. Our study suggests that the frequency and intensity of recent hydroclimate extremes over western Europe are likely still within the range of past natural variability.