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Tree-ring reconstruction of cold-season temperature in the past two centuries for the southeastern China
Paper ID : 1061-ADA2013
Authors:
Qi-Bin Zhang *1, Jianping Duan2, Lixin Lv3
120 Nanxincun, Xiangshan, Haidian District Beijing, 100093
2Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences
3Institute of Botany Chinese Academy of Sciences
Abstract:
Southeastern China is a region with dense population and rapid economic development. Cold-season extreme low temperature in this region may cause great damage in agriculture, transportation and power infrastructure. Knowledge about the cold-season temperature variability helps make strategies to reduce the damage. Such knowledge requires long-term climate data over large spatial scale. In this study, we developed a tree-ring network from 838 increment core samples of Pinus massoniana and P. taiwanensis trees in seven provinces in southeastern China to investigate the cold-season temperature variability in the past two centuries. The percentage of trees that had significant decrease in radial growth relative to previous year was calculated for each year. The resultant series used for climate analysis covered the period AD 1825–2008. The first year AD 1825 corresponded to a minimum sample size of 45 trees from 11 sampling sites. The tree-ring series had strong correlation with the inter-annual difference of January-March mean temperature (r= –0.70, n=51, p<0.0001), suggesting that it can be used as an indicator of inter-annual change in cold-season temperature. Calibration and verification tests indicated good performance of the transfer function for reconstructing past climate. The reconstructed temperature series agreed well with the actual temperature and explained 49.5% of the variance in instrumental climate in period 1958–2008. The reconstructed climate showed that extreme inter-annual decrease in cold-season temperature has increased in frequency since the 1930s. Significant correlation was found between the reconstructed temperature and the Siberian High Index, yet this correlation only remained in the period 1935–2008 (r = –0.53, n=74, p<0.0001) and declined backward for the period 1872–1934 (r= –0.21, n=63, p=0.103). Such pattern in the variation of cold-season temperature suggests a change in climate systems around the 1930s.
Keywords:
Southeastern China; cold-season temperature; climate extremes; tree-ring width; tree-ring network;
Status : Abstract Accepted