Intensified pluvial conditions during the twentieth century in the inland Heihe River Basin in arid northwestern China over the past millennium

Tree-ring derived millennial precipitation record for the south-central Tibetan Plateau and its possible driving mechanism

“…The cycles of 104-312 year periods may be linked to longer-term changes in the largescale modes of solar activity (Agnihotri et al, 2002;Wang et al, 2008). Similar periodicities were detected in climatic reconstructions from other regions (Bhutiyani et al, 2010;Hong et al, 2001;Qin et al, 2010). The interannual cycles fall within the range of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variability (Allan et al, 1996(Allan et al, , 2003Mann et al, 2005) and are in good agreement with studies from elsewhere in the Himalaya-TP region (Fan et al, 2008;Li et al, 2011Li et al, , 2012Wang et al, 2008;Yadav, 2011b), suggesting teleconnections between ENSO variability and the wet/ dry episodes in the studied area and nearby regions.…”

“…The discrepancies between the start and end years of the above-or below-average precipitation in the different archives may be partly attributed to the different seasonality of the climate signal represented by the proxies or different regional climatic conditions. Specifically, based on the tree-ring width series, the increasing trend in annual precipitation during the past 50 years was also found on the southeastern (Bräuning and Mantwill, 2004) and northeastern TP (Qin et al, 2010(Qin et al, , 2011Yang et al, 2010b), and the unprecedented pluvial condition since the mid-1980s is consistent with the results from Liu et al (2010a). This rapid growth increase can not be attributed to the age structure of the studied trees used in developing the chronology since a homogenous age distribution of young/old trees is indicated in Figure 5d.…”

Influence of Slope Aspect on Plant Community Composition and its Implications for Restoration of a Chinese Mountain Range

“…The highest air temperature in summer can reach about 40ºC in the plains and downstream area, while the lowest air temperature in winter falls to about -40°C in the high mountain upper basin area, and the average temperature is 0.5ºC. The upper reaches of the Heihe River flow out of the Qilian Mountains, which represent the water source of the Heihe, which in turn provides water for agricultural production and ecosystem stabilization in the middle and lower reaches of the Basin [3,[56][57].…”

Ejin Oasis Land Use and Vegetation Change between 2000 and 2011: The Role of the Ecological Water Diversion Project

“…Its source originates in the Qilian Mountains in Qinghai Province, which then flows through the Hexi Corridor in Gansu Province before entering the Alxa Plateau located inside the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Heihe River runoff supplies water for agricultural usage and ecosystem stabilization in the middle and lower reaches of the HRB and is highly sensitive to climate change and human activity [18][19][20][21][22]. Since the 1960s, the HRB climate has experienced a prolonged warm-wet period but no strong fluctuations as a result of global warming [21][22][23].…”

“…Heihe River runoff supplies water for agricultural usage and ecosystem stabilization in the middle and lower reaches of the HRB and is highly sensitive to climate change and human activity [18][19][20][21][22]. Since the 1960s, the HRB climate has experienced a prolonged warm-wet period but no strong fluctuations as a result of global warming [21][22][23]. Human activity has therefore become the dominant driver for runoff changes in this region over the last 60 years.…”