A new method to remove the tree growth trend based on ensemble empirical mode decomposition

Published Date
April 2017, Volume 31, Issue 2, pp 405–413

Author

• Xianliang Zhang 
• Zhenju ChenEmail author

1. 1.

Original Article

First Online: 

03 October 2015

DOI: 10.1007/s00468-015-1295-z

Cite this article as:

Zhang, X. & Chen, Z. Trees (2017) 31: 405. doi:10.1007/s00468-015-1295-z

Abstract

Key message

A new method was developed to remove the tree growth trend, which can be used as an alternative to the traditional method.

Abstract

The ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) method can be used to decompose a non-stationary series into its intrinsic variations and its mean trend. For a tree-ring series, the responses of tree growth to external forces, such as climate factors and disturbances, were shown to be the intrinsic variations of trees. The mean trend obtained using EEMD was calculated as the difference between the tree-ring width and the intrinsic variations of trees (i.e., the external forces) and thus could be regarded as the growth trend of the trees. Having determined the tree growth trend via EEMD, the chronology could then be obtained. This method was compared to the traditional methods of using linear and exponential curves [standard method (STD)] and spline smoothing detrending. The results showed that the chronologies calculated based on EEMD, STD, spline and signal-free detrending were almost the same, apart from slight differences at their ends. This end effect might be an artificial cause of the common problem of “divergence”. However, the end effect was alleviated by the ensemble approach of the EEMD method. Therefore, the new method based on EEMD is a candidate detrending approach that could be used as an alternative to traditional methods in tree-ring chronology development.

Keywords

Ensemble empirical mode decomposition Chronology Tree ring Intrinsic mode function Growth trend 

Communicated by E. Liang and A. Bräuning.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00468-015-1295-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Supplementary material

468_2015_1295_MOESM1_ESM.docx (17 kb)

Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 17 kb)

468_2015_1295_MOESM2_ESM.docx (15 kb)

Supplementary material 2 (DOCX 15 kb)

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