Recent Climate Warming of Central China Reflected by Temperature-sensitive Tree Growth in the Eastern Qinling Mountains and its Linkages to the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans

We have developed a 202-year tree-ring width chronology of Shensi fir（Abies chensiensis） growing in an open canopy forest at the treeline of the eastern Qinling Mountains. Climate response analyses revealed that the ring width of Shensi fir trees is primarily controlled by the range of temperature f...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of mountain science 2015-03, Vol.12 (2), p.396-403
Main Authors: Chen, Feng, Zhang, Rui-bo, Wang, Hui-qin, Qin, Li
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abies
Climate science
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Ecology
Environment
Geography
Global warming
Mountains
Oceans
Plant growth
Temperature effects
Trees
东秦岭
中国
大西洋
太平洋
树木年轮宽度
树木生长
气候变暖
温度敏感
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We have developed a 202-year tree-ring width chronology of Shensi fir（Abies chensiensis） growing in an open canopy forest at the treeline of the eastern Qinling Mountains. Climate response analyses revealed that the ring width of Shensi fir trees is primarily controlled by the range of temperature from February–June. The regression model that we used for statistical temperature reconstruction passed the leave-one-out cross-validation used in dendroclimatology, resulting in a quality-controlled February–June reconstruction for the eastern Qinling Mountains. The model accounts for 36.7% of the instrumental temperature variance during the period of 1960–2012. Warm springs and early summers occurred during AD 1870–1873, 1909–1914, 1927–1958 and 1997–2012, while the periods of AD 1874–1908, 1915–1926 and 1959–1996 were relatively cold. Spatial climate correlation analyses with gridded land surface data revealed that our temperature reconstruction contains a strong regional temperature signal for central China. The linkages of ourtemperature reconstruction with sea surface temperature in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans suggest the connection of regional temperature variations to large-scale ocean–atmosphere–land circulation. Preliminary analysis of links between large-scale climatic variation and the temperature reconstruction also shows that there is a relationship between extremes in spring and early summer temperature and anomalous atmospheric circulation in the Qinling Mountains. Overall, our study provides reliable information for the research of past temperature variability in the Qinling Mountains, China.
ISSN:1672-6316
1993-0321
1008-2786
DOI:10.1007/s11629-014-3196-9