Dr. Cahyarini and her co-PI Dr. Intan Suci Nurhati, formerly of Surya University, worked with counterparts at Mulawarman University in East Kalimantan to organize a capacity building workshop on dendroclimatology, which was held at Mulawarman May 24 to June 2, 2014. One day of lectures and one day of technical training in the university’s forest were followed by a week of field work for selected participants to collect tree samples for further tree ring analysis. The goals of the event were (1) to build linkages among Indonesian paleoclimatologists and stakeholders in the local forestry sector to initiate dendroclimate studies at the university and (2) to create interest in paleoclimate studies among forestry undergraduates. As a follow up to this workshop, a Memorandum of Understanding between the Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI) and Mulawarman University was signed on September 10, 2014, with the aim of facilitating expanded collaboration in educational and research activities. The PI Dr. Cahyarini presented a lecture on the use of trees and corals for paleoclimate studies during the visit. Later that year, they sent some tree core samples to the University of Maryland for chemical analysis, and Dr. Nurhati continued supervising her students as they prepared other samples for analysis.

Although they were hampered by various technical and communications difficulties, the researchers undertook analysis of carbon and oxygen isotopic data from 25 years of ring-dated samples from three replicate increment cores from Muna, Sulawesi, Indonesia. The team sent some tree core samples to the University of Maryland for chemical analysis, and a joint paper on their initial findings was presented at the European Geosciences Union annual meeting in 2018. The researchers also presented their work and results at meetings of the Asia Dendrochronological Association and the Asia Oceania Geosciences Society, as well as the the Small Islands Research in Tropical Regions conference. The PI Dr. Cahyarini has also presented lectures on paleoclimate using geological archives (such as trees, coral, and sediments) at the Department of Oceanography at the Institut Teknologi Bandung. The team also received a new $30,000 grant from the National Geographic Society to support their further research.

Publication

Michael Evans, Intan Nurhati, Sri Yudawati Cahyarini, and Rosanne D’Arrigo. 2018. Pilot study: stable isotopes in teak from marine-influenced equatorial Indonesia as local rainfall amount and remote ENSO indicators. Geophysical Research Abstracts 20, EGU2018-18659. https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018EGUGA..2018659E/abstract