Growth of the trees at the upper timber line as indicator of climatic changes

In the last 10 years information about global climate change and possible effects of that phenomenon are becoming more and more frequent. Great deal of research work, which does not include dendrochronological and dendroclimatological studies, takes as a reference point average yearly temeperature around year 1900. However it is known from different sources that the period between 1350 and 1900 is referred to as "Little Ice Age" with average yearly temperature 2-3 deg. C lower than in the preceding period 1000-1300 (also know as a "Medieval warm period"). By comparing temperatures in the last 50 years with those from the "Medieval warm period" we can see that they are not even close to those 900 years ago.The purpose of the study is to use tree-ring widths as a proxy record to reconstruct average temperature for yearly level and vegetation period for the last 500-750 years. Base for that is a climate - growth relationship model, which will be first calibrated, then verified and tested and later used for the reconstruction of the climate. Such reconstruction has not yet been done on the Slovenian level. Results from other dendroclimatological network are of limited use because of a very specific interference climate.