Historical temperature variability in a representative high-latitude region in the monsoon-continental climate transition zone in China

Abstract

Global warming has exacerbated the instability of the climate and has led to the frequent occurrence of extreme cold and warm events. In this study, we constructed a standardized tree-ring width chronology of Korean spruce (Picea koraiensis Nakai) growing in a representative high-latitude region in the monsoon-continental climate transition zone in China from 1845 to 2016 and used it to analyse the response of the radial growth of Korean spruce to climatic factors such as temperature and precipitation. The results show that the annual mean temperature was the dominant climatic factor affecting the growth of Korean spruce. Hence, we reconstructed the annual mean temperature series of this region spanning the past 172 years. The analysis results show that the study area experienced five warm periods and five cold periods in the past 172 years. Cold years were dominant before 1960s, while temperature continuously rose and changed drastically in the early 21st century. The reconstructed annual mean temperature series has variability cycles of 3 a, 7 a, 10–12 a, 15–22 a, and 30–40 a. The results of this reconstruction enrich the tree-ring database in the representative regions of the monsoon-continental climate transition zone in China and provide a reference for systematically understanding the climate change patterns in the representative regions of the transition zone.