Short-term climate change in South China has been extensively studied based on meteorological or hydrological records. However, tree ring-based long-term climate change research is rare, especially in the Pearl River basin, owing to the difficulty in finding old-aged trees. Here, we present a 200-year tree ring width chronology of Pinus kwangtungensis in the east Pearl River basin with reliable coverage from 1894 to 2014. Based on the significant climate–growth relationship between tree growth and annual self-calibrating Palmer drought severity index (scPDSI) from previous May to current April, the pMay–cApr scPDSI was reconstructed for the period 1894–2014. The reconstruction reveals four dry periods during 1899–1924, 1962–1974, 1988–1994, and 2003–2014, and four wet periods during 1894–1898, 1925–1961, 1975–1987, and 1995–2002. Significant spatial correlations between the reconstructed scPDSI and the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) gridded scPDSI indicate that our reconstruction can effectively represent regional moisture variability in the Pearl River basin. Spatial correlations with global sea surface temperatures (SSTs) show that our reconstruction is negatively correlated with northern and western Pacific SSTs while positively correlated with eastern Pacific SSTs, suggesting that SST variability in these domains strongly affects moisture change in the Pearl River basin.

中文翻译：

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根据树年轮记录推算1894年以来东珠江流域的水分变化。

基于气象或水文记录，已经对华南地区的短期气候变化进行了广泛研究。但是，基于树环的长期气候变化研究很少，特别是在珠江流域，这是由于难以找到老树。在这里，我们介绍了广东松的200年树年轮宽度年表珠江东流域从1894年到2014年覆盖范围可靠。基于从5月到今年4月树木生长与年度自校准Palmer干旱严重度指数（scPDSI）之间显着的气候-生长关系，pMay-cApr scPDSI在1894年至2014年期间进行了重建。重建显示了1899–1924年，1962–1974年，1988–1994年和2003–2014年的四个干旱时期，以及1894–1898年，1925–1961年，1975-1987和1995-2002年的四个湿润时期。重建的scPDSI与气候研究单位（CRU）网格化的scPDSI之间的显着空间相关性表明，我们的重建可以有效地代表珠江流域的区域水分变化。