Dendrochronology, the study of tree-ring records to glean information about the past, is possible because each year a tree adds a new layer of wood between the existing wood and the bark. In temperate and subpolar climates, cells added at the growing season's start are large and thin-walled, but later the new cells that develop are smaller and thick-walled; the growing season is followed by a period of dormancy. When a tree trunk is viewed in cross section, a boundary line is normally visible between the small-celled wood added at the end of the growing season in the previous year and the large-celled spring wood of the following year's growing season. The annual growth pattern appears as a series of larger and larger rings. In wet years rings are broad; during drought years they are narrow, since the trees grow less. Often, ring patterns of dead trees of different, but overlapping, ages can be correlated to provide an extended index of past climate conditions.

However, trees that grew in areas with a steady supply of groundwater show little variation in ring width from year to year; these "complacent" rings tell nothing about changes in climate. And trees in extremely dry regions may go a year or two without adding any rings, thereby introducing uncertainties into the count. Certain species sometimes add more than one ring in a single year, when growth halts temporarily and then starts again.