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Accessing glacial history through tree rings – a case study from southeast Tibet.
Paper ID : 1065-ADA2013
Authors:
Philipp Hochreuther *1, Jussi Griessinger2, Achim Bräuning2
1Kochstraße 4/4, D-91054 Erlangen
2Institute of Geography, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
Abstract:
South- and Southeast Asia is home to more than one third of the world's population, with the monsoon system as the main provider of precipitation. The hydrological dependency and thus vulnerability of the region, in combination with the variability that inherits the system on a year-to-year basis means, as a consequence, great risks to the whole region. The reconstruction of patterns evolved by two different monsoonal branches poses therefore an important and challenging task since spatio-temporal availability of instrumental climate data is sparse in High Asia.
The complex climatic patterns on the south-eastern Tibetan plateau (TP) are approached by applying dendrochronological methods to pioneer tree stands on and near the moraines of monsoonal temperate glaciers. As the mass balance of glaciers, and thus their movement, on the TP is mainly dependent on monsoonal precipitation and tree growth is overall limited by temperature, those tree stands yield a high potential for providing excellent palaeoclimatic proxies.
The first results from a combined approach of dating glacial movements, combining geomorphological and dendrochronological methods, are presented. Multiple chronologies from different glacier forefields show not only a high temporal, but also spatial fluctuation on a mesoclimatic scale. This variability in growth can be interpreted through a combination of spatial attributes, e.g. altitude, aspect or spatial relation to surrounding ridges, and micro- to mesoclimatic influences such as catabatic winds. Changes in mass balance of the adjacent glaciers are also taken into consideration. A statistical approach to quantify the influence of the different spatial and climatic factors will be presented.
Additionally, macroclimatic circulation systems leave a visible imprint on tree growth. These factors paint a highly complex picture of analysis and reconstruction of monsoonal patterns, which is a main goal of the ongoing work.
Keywords:
dendroglaciology; Tibetan plateau
Status : Abstract Accepted