Deciphering climate response variation along the Western Ghats of India archived in teak ring width

Latent heat released during orographic precipitation over the Western Ghat (WG) Mountain drives the Indian Summer Monsoon. Instrumental data record a considerable spatiotemporal variation of rainfall amount along the mountain. Although Indian teak (Tectona grandis LF) samples from WG have been used earlier for reconstructing past monsoon rainfall, the effect of rainfall variation on the annual ring growth pattern along the mountain has not been extensively studied yet. To address this issue, tree-ring width data series from three locations—Dahanu (1763 -1985), Nagerhole (1703–2016), and Tekkedy (1785–2003) are presented in this study. The locations are situated along WG from north to south. Monthly mean rainfall data obtained from the nearest observatories show a decreasing (increasing) rainfall amount from north to south during summer monsoon (pre and post-monsoon) . We obtain a significant positive correlation between ring width indices and monsoon rainfall and a negative correlation with summer (especially May) temperature suggesting a contrasting response of summer temperature and monsoon rain on teak growth. The correlation between rainfall and ring width varies from southern to northern WG (both in significance level and the number of months with significant correlation). While the southernmost location exhibits positive (significant) correlations for both pre and summer monsoon months, the correlations are found for only two summer monsoonal months in the northernmost location. This spatial correlation trend reflects the variation of the pre-monsoon to monsoon rainfall ratio observed in our study locations. This observation is further substantiated by soil moisture-ring width relationship. Furthermore, our study shows that ring width indices respond to a variation of western equatorial Pacific sea surface temperature and vapor pressure deficit. Our study, therefore, suggests that the Indian teak samples can be used for understanding regional and seasonal scale rainfall/soil moisture variation along the WG and teleconnection studies.