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1 January 2017 Millennium-Long Tree-Ring Chronology Reveals Megadroughts on the Southeastern Tibetan Plateau
Chang-Yuan Nie, Qi-Bin Zhang, Lixin Lyu
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Abstract

Millennium-aged trees are rare in natural forests. Here we present an 1184-year-long tree-ring width chronology from living juniper trees in the Biru area on the southeastern Tibetan Plateau. Growth-climate response analysis shows that the Biru chronology is significantly and positively correlated with late-spring (May-June) Standardized Precipitation Evaporation Index (SPEI) (r = 0.67, n = 53, p < 0.01). The tree-ring chronology explains 44.5% of the total variance of SPEI during the period AD 1957–2010. Reconstruction of May-June SPEI shows that there was a two-century-long megadrought during the late 13th to late 15th Centuries, and a seven-decade-long megadrought during AD 1630s to 1690s. Comparisons with other moisture records in the region suggest that the two-century megadrought identified in our reconstruction might be a widespread phenomenon most likely reflecting a stage of reduced Southwest Asian Summer Monsoon. Our results provide new evidence on the megadrought events on the Tibetan Plateau for the last millennium.

Copyright © 2017 by The Tree-Ring Society
Chang-Yuan Nie, Qi-Bin Zhang, and Lixin Lyu "Millennium-Long Tree-Ring Chronology Reveals Megadroughts on the Southeastern Tibetan Plateau," Tree-Ring Research 73(1), 1-10, (1 January 2017). https://doi.org/10.3959/1536-1098-73.1.1
Received: 7 June 2016; Accepted: 1 October 2016; Published: 1 January 2017
KEYWORDS
Biru County
Juniper trees
late Spring
paleoclimate
SPEI
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