Yesterday’s New York Times has a fantastically illustrated article on dendrochronology, the science of studying tree rings. I’ve mentioned dendrochronology in a few posts here in connection to the process of calibrating the results of radiocarbon analysis (for instance, here). The article is by Daniel Griffin (University of Minnesota) with graphics by Nathaniel Lash. The point of the article is the ongoing drought in the western United States, but the general discussion of dendrochronology is very clear, and the illustrations are wonderful. Check it out here:
Variant Readings 
“Check it out here” Where? There seems to be something missing.
That’s odd. There should be a link to the article below: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/07/20/opinion/ancient-trees-climate-change.html
It appears to be a paid subscriber article with restricted access.
Yes. I think the New York Times gives 5 or so free articles a month. It’s also sometimes possible to see a paywalled article if you are directed to it by a google search. You could try googling “dendrochronology New York Times” and see if a working link to the story from 20 July 2022 comes up.