date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 09:20:46 +0200 from: Fritz Schweingruber to: k.briffa@uea.ac.uk Dear Keith It was a good idea to sensilibise some Americans for boreal dendroclimatic studies. I think that also the densitometric labs from Marseill (Tessier) and Quebec (Payette) should be included. It is a fascinating idea to bring all dendroclimatologists und on umbrella with two topics: - what about the last 40 years? - millenial growth/climate fluctuations One problem is still not solved or even not discussed. The European foresters clearly say that forests are growing more and more - no downward trend since 1960. We should bring this problem on the table. Recently several foresters at the WSL addressed the proplem. I initiated now a PhD. thesis in this respect. I gatherd hundrets of modern (mostly ring width) chronologies from France, Switzerland and Germany from lowland and subalpine reginos, from dry and normal sites. Burkhard Neuwirth from Bonn has to address this problem besid the spatial pointer year analysis. Perhaps we should include few laboratories with have large data bases. Yours Fritz What do you think, should we address this discrepancy