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Tree-ring derived temperature records in the central Loess Plateau, China
Paper ID : 1060-ADA2013
Authors:
Huiming Song *
Fenghui South Road 10#,
Abstract:
Global warming is currently an important global issue of scientific and socio-economic concern. It is therefore important to investigate temperature variations in different regions in order to gain further understanding of 20th century warming in the context of the previous several hundred years or the previous millennium. The Chinese Loess Plateau is the most widely distributed region of loess on the Earth and covered by thick loess. Now more than 70% of the area is dominated with gully-hill due to mass soil erosion during the later Quaternary and intense human activities over the past 3000 years. In order to control ecosystem deterioration and soil erosion, it is important and urgent to be aware of climate conditions in the past on Loess Plateau and to predict expected climatic variation trends in the future. No doubt, tree rings are important proxy for the past climate research in the area. Although some tree-ring studies are available on the Plateau, it is not sufficient to recognize the climatic variations on the Loess Plateau in the past several centuries.
Using ring widths of Pinus tabulaeformis Carr. trees, mean temperatures from February to September were reconstructed for the Kongtong region during the past 283 years. The reconstruction could explain 43.7% (or 42.6%, after adjustment for loss of degrees of freedom) of temperature variance during the calibration period from 1951 to 2004. It corresponded well with the temperature regimes in Hokkaido, Japan, indicating that both regions have similar warm and cold intervals. The high correlation between the reconstruction and the CRU (Climatic Research Unit of University of East Anglia, UK) TS3 temperature datasets showed that the temperature reconstruction from Kongtong could be representative of large scale climate change over northern China. In addition, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) affected temperature variations of northern China and even Hokkaido to a certain extent.
Keywords:
temperature; tree-ring;Kongtong, China
Status : Abstract Accepted