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  4. Kristina Seftigen

Kristina Seftigen

Associate Senior Lecturer

Department of Earth Sciences
Telephone
+46 766-18 29 20
Mail
kristina.seftigen@gvc.gu.se
Visiting address
Medicinaregatan 7B
41262 Göteborg
Postal address
Box 460
40530 Göteborg

About Kristina Seftigen

Research interests

I am an an Associate Professor in Physical Geography at the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg, and vice-director of the Gothenburg University Laboratory of Dendrochronology (GULD). My research interests are centered on dendrochronology (tree-ring research). In short, I use the tree-ring proxy archive to characterize short- to long-term variability in moisture and temperature during the last ~2,000 years, at local, regional and hemispheric scales. While the tree-ring archive is the core of my work, my research interests also include other proxy records, and how these relate to General Circulation Models.

I am particularly interested in past hydroclimatic changes in Scandinavia. By applying new methods and incorporating other tree-ring parameters than the commonly used tree-ring width proxy, I aim to refine our knowledge of past hydroclimate changes in Scandinavia – a region traditionally overlooked in tree-ring studies of past droughts because of the cool and rather humid climate regime.

I am the PI of several ongoing and finished projects:

Ongoing projects

  • "The Shrubification of the Swedish Tundra – Multidisciplinary Monitoring for a Consensus Perspective" (2024-2026, funded by FORMAS) is a project aimed at studying shrub growth in sub-Arctic Sweden. As part of this initiative, we have established a monitoring program that includes high-precision dendrometers to track the growth of shrub genera such as Betula, Salix, and Juniperus. The dataset, which captures hourly stem diameter changes, will be enriched by retrospective analyses of shrub-ring chronologies and xylem anatomical traits using dendrochronological methods. This comprehensive in-situ data collection is expected to enhance our understanding of Arctic vegetation changes across different time scales—past, present, and future.
  • "Are droughts becoming the new normal for Sweden? – Integrating proxy data and model simulations to understand past and future hydroclimate" (2020-2024, funded by Vetenskapsrådet). The recent droughts in Scandinavia have shown how a changing climate can greatly impact both the environment and human well-being. This project aims to better understand Sweden's regional hydroclimate patterns over the past centuries and how natural climate variability interacts with human-driven climate change. A key outcome of the project will be the creation of a unique, 1,000-year-long tree-ring dataset, offering a new perspective on Sweden's hydroclimate history. This data will not only help validate climate models but also provide a long-term view of climate patterns, especially as we compare modern trends with past warming periods, such as the Medieval Climate Anomaly, which serves as an important benchmark for understanding current climate changes.

Previous projects

  • “Bridging paleoclimate records and climate model simulations with a novel model/proxy comparison framework” (duration 2020-2022, funded by FORMAS). This project combines tree-ring anatomy, proxy system modelling, and the last-millennium PMIP4/CMIP6 model simulations to better characterize the northern hemisphere temperature evolution over the last ~1,000 years. Specifically, we 1) produce and analyze multiple, millennium-long, dendroanatomical time series at strategically selected sites across the Northern Hemisphere; 2) develop and adapt a proxy system modelling (PSM) framework that is employed to sharpen climate-signal interpretation of the novel proxy parameters, to quantify uncertainties with traditional statistical calibration approaches and retrodict inter-annual to long-term temperature variability of the last millennium; 3) compare and integrate proxy data and model simulations to jointly address uncertainties in both and generate critical insights into the dynamics of the climate system that each would be unable to provide separately. Project partners include the Dendrosciences group at the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL (project page here), the Tree-Ring Laboratory University of St Andrews, and the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences.

Current teaching:

  • GV2006 Project in Earth Sciences
  • GV1410 Geovetenskap: Grundkurs