Location :Tree Rings Records Reveal the Influence of North Atlantic Sea Surface Temperature Fluctuations on the Climate of the Qinling-Bashan Mountains, China
With the intensification of global climate change, understanding historical climate patterns is crucial for predicting future trends in climate change.
Recently, a research team led by the Institute of Earth Environment of the Chinese Academy of Sciences successfully reconstructed the temperature change records of the past 250 years by analyzing the tree rings in the Qinling-Bashan Mountains (QBM).
This study not only provides valuable historical data for our understanding of climate change in the region, as well as in China and the Northern Hemisphere, but also reveals the significant impact of North Atlantic Sea Surface Temperature (NA-SST) on temperature changes in the QBM region.
The Qinling Bashan region, as an important geographical and climatic boundary in China, has high forest coverage and rich biodiversity, making it an ideal area for studying ancient climates. The research team utilized the tree-ring-width data of Pinus bungeana Zucc., a unique tree species in China, and established a high-quality tree-ring-width chronology through precise cross-dating, thereby reconstructed the temperature changes of QBM over the past 250 years.
This new temperature reconstruction not only matches the winter temperature reconstruction recorded in local historical literature to a certain extent, but also captures strong regional and hemispherical temperature signals.
Researchers have found that the QBM experienced the end of the Little Ice Age (LIA), and the warming since the 1970s is still within the framework of temperature changes over the past 250 years; Since the Industrial Era in 1850, the warming trend in the QBM region has been relatively mild compared to East Asia and the entire Northern Hemisphere. The study also revealed that NA-SST is the dominant factor controlling temperature changes in the QBM over the past 250 years. However, its impact was temporarily suppressed between 1900 and 1930 due to the interference from Pacific Interdecadal Oscillation (PDO).
This study is crucial for developing effective environmental management and adaptation strategies in the QBM region, reminding us to consider not only the dominant role of NA-SST but also the regulatory effect of PDO when predicting future temperatures in the QBM region.
This work published in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, was jointly supported by grants from the Natural Science Basic Research Program of Shaanxi (2024JC-ZDXM-17), the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB40010300), the Fund of Shandong Province (LSKJ202203300), the International (Regional) Cooperation and Exchange Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China (42361144712), the Natural Science Basic Research Program of Shaanxi Province (2023-JC-QN0307) and the State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology. It is a part of the Sino-Swedish Tree-Ring Research Center (SISTRR) contribution.
Contact: BAI Jie, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China. Email: baijie@ieecas.cn
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