Reconstruction of precipitation in the last 140 years from tree ring at south margin of the Tengger Desert, China

Abstract

Based on the tree ring width index of Pinus tabulaeformis, precipitation in the last 140 years was reconstructed at south margin of the Tengger Desert. The results indicated that there were obvious fluctuations of dry-wet changes in precipitation: two wet periods occurred during 1868-1876 and 1932-1939, and two dry periods during 1877-1894 and 1924-1932, however, the years 1887 and 1888 were a little wet. There were small changes in precipitation during 1895-1923 and 1940-2000. As compared to the average, the maximum increasing range of precipitation amounted to 56% during the wet periods, and 42% during the dry periods. And the range of variability of precipitation exceeded 30% in 19 years. There was no obvious consistent drying or wetting trend in the last 140 years. But since 1940 fluctuating scope of precipitation tended to be smaller, while the frequency of the fluctuation tended to be larger. Power spectrum analyses suggested that precipitation of south margin of the Tengger Desert had significant periodicities of 2.46-2.64 a and quasi periodicity of 11.67 a.

Reconstruction of the March–August PDSI since 1703 AD based on tree rings of Chinese pine (<i>Pinus tabulaeformis</i> Carr.) in the Lingkong Mountain, southeast Chinese loess Plateau

“…Inversely, increased temperature before and during the growth season inevitably strengthen the water stress by accelerating water consumption in the soil and trees through evaporation and transpiration, resulting in the formation of narrow rings, and vice versa. Reasonably, positive correlation of tree rings with monthly precipitation and negative correlations with monthly mean temperature in current growth year was identified in this study, and this climate-growth pattern was generally reported in the arid to semi-arid CLP (Gao et al, 2005;Liu et al, 2005; and other areas of northern China (Liang et al, 2007).…”

“…10) was very similar to the 38 yr cycle in the 2485 yr temperature reconstructions in the northeastern Tibetan Plateau , to the 35-38 yr cycle in a tree-ring-based streamflow reconstruction for the upper Yellow River (Gou et al, 2010) and to the 34.1 yr cycle in a tree-ring network-based spatial drought reconstruction for central high Asia (Fang , 2010b). Considering the limited length of our reconstruction (306 yr), the 102 yr cycle (p < 0.01) may not be reliable.…”

“…To date, few dendroclimatological studies have been conducted in the central part of the CLP Cai et al, 2008;Koretsune et al, 2009) because of the scarcity of old trees due to natural geographical conditions and historical reasons. However, previous studies in the marginal area of the CLP (Gao et al, 2005;Fang et al, 2012; have greatly contributed to our understanding of tree growth-climate relationships and climate change in this region. Even though, additional efforts are required to increase the spatial and temporal coverage, creating opportunities for a wide range of detailed local-toregional climatological studies in this region (Linderholm, et al, 2013).…”

Tree-ring-based May–July mean temperature history for Lüliang Mountains, China, since 1836

“…Studies have also suggested that tree growth in arid to semiarid northern China is generally limited by a period of water deficit [9,10,24]. This relationship can frequently be reflected in the directly positive correlation between tree-ring width and rainfall over a given period.…”

A tree-ring-based reconstruction of the Yimin River annual runoff in the Hulun Buir region, Inner Mongolia, for the past 135 years

“…Temperature (maximum temperature) affects the growth of trees by influencing the amount of moisture in the soil, as well as the respiration and transpiration rate of trees, especially if precipitation is not adequate during the growing season [6,23,24]. This pattern can often be inferred from tree-ring width chronologies that are positively correlated with rainfall and negatively correlated with temperature [25,26].…”