The astronomer A.E. Douglass is generally recognized as the founding father of dendrochronology. He studied tree rings in the search for evidence that solar variation (as seen in sunspots) is reflected in climate variation. He was convinced that his quest was successful. Analysis of some of his early data using Fourier decomposition and comparison of tree-ring periodograms with those based on k...

If tree-ring series from different trees are merged to a chronology, in order to for example make inferences on climate, these series must be checked for consistency. Statistical parameters, including the Gleichläufigkeit (GL = coefficient of agreement) and standard t value have been applied for this purpose and are usually combined to boost the informative value. We tested the hypothesis that ...

2. The points-over-threshold approach, which is also known as the peaks over thresholds approach, is based on examining all the observations over a given threshold. Under certain conditions, the distribution of excess values follow the generalized pareto distribution (GPD) [Pickands, 1975]. There are differing methods for the choice of threshold and the bias-variance trade-off must be considere...