An ice-core record of vegetation and climate changes in the central Tibetan Plateau during the last 550 years

Yang, Bao; Tang, Lu; Li, Chunhai; Yajun, Shao; Tao, ShiCheng; Yang, LunQing

doi:10.1007/s11434-010-0017-6

Cited by 12 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…In a globally warming climate, observed rates of atmospheric evaporation demand have declined over recent decades over many regions of the earth (McVicar et al, 2012a, b, Table II and the references therein).The Tibetan Plateau (TP) plays an important role in shaping the Asian climate and influencing climatic and environmental changes even in the Northern Hemisphere (Molnar et al, 2010;Liu et al, 2011). Widespread climatic changes on the Tibetan Plateau have been reported, with long-term trends observed in T a , u, net radiation (R n ), actual vapour pressure (e a ) and precipitation (Dai, 1990;Kang et al, 1998;Liu and Chen, 2000). All these variations will have inevitably led to changes in evapotranspiration.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pan evaporation modelling and changing attribution analysis on the Tibetan Plateau (1970–2012)

Hong

Zhu

Yuan

2014

Hydrological Processes

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Abstract:Pan evaporation (E p ) is an important indicator of water and energy and the decline of E p has been reported in many regions over the last decades. The climate and E p are dependent on each other. In this study, the temporal trends of E p and main E p drivers, namely mean air temperature (T a ), wind speed (u), global solar radiation (R s ), net long-wave radiation(R nl ) and vapour pressure deficit (D) from 1970 to 2012, were calculated on the basis of 26 meteorological stations on the Tibetan Plateau. , respectively. The diffuse irradiance is an essential parameter to model E p and quantify the contribution of climatic factors to changing E p . 60 724 observations of R s and diffuse solar irradiance (R d ) from seven of the 26 stations were used to develop the correlation between the diffuse fraction (R d /R s ), and the clearness index (R s /R o ). On the basis of the estimation of the diffuse component of R s and climatic data, we modified the PenPan model to estimate Chinese micro-pan evaporation (E p ) and assess the attribution of E p dynamics using partial derivatives. The results showed that there was a good agreement between the observed and calculated daily E p values. The observed decrease in E p was mostly due to declining wind speed (À13.7 mm a À2 ) with some contributions from decreasing solar irradiance (À3.1 mm a À2 ); and the increase of temperature had a large positive effect (4.55 mm a À2) in total whilst the increase of R nl had insignificant effect (0.35 mm a À2 ) on E p rates. The change of E p is the net result of all the climatic variables.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pan evaporation modelling and changing attribution analysis on the Tibetan Plateau (1970–2012)

Hong

Zhu

Yuan

2014

Hydrological Processes

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“…The temperature records in China have high level-of-confidence for the past 500 years [24][25][26]. However, large uncertainties exist prior to the 16th century [24].…”

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confidence: 99%

Solar influenced late Holocene temperature changes on the northern Tibetan Plateau

Liu

Zhao

et al. 2013

Chin. Sci. Bull.

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Considerable efforts have been made to extend temperature records beyond the instrumental period through proxy reconstructions, in order to further understand the mechanisms of past climate variability. Yet, the global coverage of existing temperature records is still limited, especially for some key regions like the Tibetan Plateau and for earlier times including the Medieval Warm Period (MWP). Here we present decadally-resolved, alkenone-based, temperature records from two lakes on the northern Tibetan Plateau. Characterized by marked temperature variability, our records provide evidence that temperatures during the MWP were slightly higher than the modern period in this region. Further, our temperature reconstructions, within age uncertainty, can be well correlated with solar irradiance changes, suggesting a possible link between solar forcing and natural climate variability, at least on the northern Tibetan Plateau.

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“…The use of biological species as proxy data for continental ice cores holds much promise, since the continental glaciers, in contrast to the polar ones, are located in close proximity to the plant communities and have a high accumulation rate, which allows a high-resolution palynological analysis to be carried out (Mikhalenko, 2008). However, palynological studies of continental ice cores are not numerous (Liu et al, 1998Nakazawa et al, 2004;Yang et al, 2010;Reese et al, 2013) although they have good applications. It was shown that pollen in tropical ice cores can be used as an indicator of vegetation response to glacial-interglacial climate change sequences (Reese et al, 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biological proxies recorded in a Belukha ice core, Russian Altai

et al. 2013

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Abstract. Different biological proxies such as pollen, cysts, and diatoms were identified and quantified in the upper part of a Belukha ice core from the Russian Altai. The ice core from the Belukha glacier collected in 2001 (4062 m a.s.l., 49 • 48 N, 86 • 34 E) was analyzed with annual resolution in the period . Daily data of the frequency of synoptic patterns observed in the Northern Hemisphere along with daily data of precipitation have been used to identify the predominant atmospheric circulations (elementary circulating mechanisms, or ECMs) generating the entry of biological proxies on the glacier surface. It was shown that the high-resolution records of diatoms, cysts, spores, and plant pollen in the Belukha ice core are the biological proxies for the changes in the structure of precipitation in the Altai region since these records can reflect changes in the contribution of different atmospheric circulation to annual or seasonal precipitation. The joint consideration of the transport ability of the biological species and the data of precipitation allowed us to determine the main modern sources of biological proxies deposited at the Belukha glacier. The main sources of diatoms in the Belukha ice core are water bodies of the Aral, Caspian, and northern Kazakhstan basins; coniferous tree pollen originated from the taiga forest of the boreal zone of western Siberia; pollen of deciduous trees and herbs from steppe and forest-steppe vegetation in the northern Altai and eastern Kazakhstan; and cysts and spores of plants were transported from local water bodies and forests. The identified source regions of the biological species are supported by back trajectory analyses and are in good agreement with emission source regions of the trace elements in the ice core.

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An ice-core record of vegetation and climate changes in the central Tibetan Plateau during the last 550 years

Cited by 12 publications

References 28 publications

Pan evaporation modelling and changing attribution analysis on the Tibetan Plateau (1970–2012)

Pan evaporation modelling and changing attribution analysis on the Tibetan Plateau (1970–2012)

Solar influenced late Holocene temperature changes on the northern Tibetan Plateau

Biological proxies recorded in a Belukha ice core, Russian Altai

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