Cross-dating of highly sensitive Common beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) tree-ring series with numerous missing rings

Common beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) at the Nature Reserve Tolseboda in Southern Sweden posed a challenge to be cross-dated. A site chronology spanning the period 1736–2006 was built. It was possible to cross-date even suppressed beech trees with extremely narrow and frequently missing tree rings; in one of them approximately 36 rings were missing. The prominent climatic signals were summer temperature (July–August) and precipitation (June–August) of the previous year. The narrowest pointer year was 1916, caused by the dry prior summer.