By combining living trees and archaeological wood, the annual mean temperatures were reconstructed based on ring-width indices of the mid-eastern Tibetan Plateau for the past 2485 years. The climate variations revealed by the reconstruction indicate that there were four periods to have average tem- peratures similar to or even higher than that mean of 1970 to 2000 AD. A particularly notable rapid shift from cold to warm, we call it the "Eastern Jin Event", occurred from 348 AD to 413 AD. Calculation re- sults show that the temperature variations over the mid-eastern Tibetan Plateau are not only repre- sentative for large parts of north-central China, but also closely correspond to those of the entire Northern Hemisphere over long time scales. During the last 2485 years, the downfall of most major dynasties in China coincides with intervals of low temperature. Compared with the temperature records in other regions of China during the last 1000 years, this reconstruction from the Tibetan Plateau shows a significant warming trend after the 1950s.
This paper presents a 457-year reconstruction of precipitation in the southeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau using tree-ring records.Tree-ring samples were collected from the Hengduan Mountains in the southeastern part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau,China.A nearly 500-year chronology was developed using tree-ring width records.Correlation analysis shows moisture is the main factor limiting tree growth in this region.Ring-widths were significantly positively correlated with the Palmer Drought Severity Index(PDSI) and precipitation in many months.The highest correlation coefficient was found between the annual growth of trees and precipitation from the previous September to the current June(0.738).Based on this relationship,we reconstructed the precipitation history from 1509 to 2006.The reconstruction explains 54.4%(Radj2=53.5%,N=49,F=56.12) of the actual precipitation variation during the calibration period(1958-2006).During the reliable period of the reconstruction(1549-2006),some low-frequency climate signals are included,indicating this region has been getting wetter in the last 20 years.The reconstruction documents six apparently dry and five pluvial periods and the 17th century dry period lasted longer than any other.When compared with other recent studies,this study and these earlier reconstructions show a similar trend in the variation of drought and pluvial.Further spatial correlation analysis confirms that the reconstructed precipitation adequately represents the rainfall history of the entire Hengduan Mountain area.The Multi-taper method,a type of spectral analysis,reveals that precipitation in this area had significant(P<0.01) spectral peaks at 3-5 a,60 a and 79-85 a.
We established a Juniperus przewalski tree ring width chronology, based on tree ring cores collected from the A’nyêmaqên Mountains. Statistical analysis showed that the chronology was highly correlated with instrumental streamflow records from previous August to current July from the Tangnaihai Station in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, with a correlation coefficient of 0.656. Streamflow for the upper reaches of the Yellow River was reconstructed for the past 1234 years. Low flow periods for the 11-year averaged streamflow reconstruction were definite as lower than mean plus 1 standard deviation, and high flow periods were higher than mean minus 1 standard deviation. Over the past 1234 years, high flows occurred 18 times, and low flows occurred 12 times. The main low flow periods were identified as AD 1140–1156, AD 1295–1309, AD 1473–1500, and AD 1820–1847, and the main high flow periods were identified as AD 846–873, and AD 1375–1400. Extremely low streamflow over the reconstruction period was seen during the late 15th century, coinciding with a widespread drought phenomenon, which took place in the northeastern Tibetan Plateau over the same period. Reconstructed streamflow shows significant low-frequency variability, which is in line with drought variability of neighboring regions, as inferred from tree rings and other proxies. Multi-taper spectral analysis suggests the existence of significant periods of 2–5, 22, 35–38, 55–62, and 114–227 years, particularly significant for cyclic variations of years 159 and 36.
