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Extreme climate historical variation based on tree-ring width record in the Tianshan Mountains of northwestern China

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Abstract

The increasing frequency and intensity of extreme climate events have caused serious impacts on the service functions of terrestrial ecosystems and the production and life of human society in recent years. The warm nights (TN90p) variable of the 26 extreme climate indicators was the main factor controlling the tree radial growth of Schrenk spruce (Picea schrenkiana) in the Tianshan Mountains region based on the responses of tree-ring width in the 5 sample sites. Therefore, TN90p in the growth season from May to September (TN90p5–9) during 1735–2016 was reconstructed on the basis of the time stability of the growth–climate relationships. The interpretation rate of variance of the reconstructed equation was 45.4% (R2adj = 44.4%, F = 45.7). The reconstruction showed four relatively high TN90p5–9 historic intervals (1747–1798, 1856–1872, 1906–1951, and 2002–2016) and four low intervals (1735–1747, 1798–1856, 1872–1900, and 1951–2002). The occurrence frequency of extreme high values was higher than that of extreme low values during the reconstruction period of 1735–2016. The extreme values of reconstruction were consistent with historical droughts and large-scale volcanic eruptions, indicating that the reconstruction series had high accuracy. Multi-window spectral periodic analysis and spatial correlation analysis revealed that TN90p5–9 variation in the study area was affected by large-scale sea–air stress factors. In particular, the TN90p5–9 obtained by using R/S analysis (rescaled range analysis) will continue to show an upward trend in the relative period of time in the future. This trend will lead to a further decrease in the radial growth of trees and even trigger forest death events.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the anonymous referees for useful suggestions and comments.

Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Projects No. 41861006 and 41630750) and the Scientific Research Program of Higher Education Institutions of Gansu Province (2018C-02).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Geography and Environment Science, Northwest Normal University, No.967, Anning East Road, Lanzhou, 730070, China

    Shengjie Wang, Liang Jiao, Ke Chen, Xiaoping Liu, Changliang Qi & Ruhong Xue

  2. State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, No.19, Xinjiekouwai Street, Haidian District, Beijing, 100875, China

    Liang Jiao & Yuan Jiang

  3. Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, No. 19, Xinjiekouwai Street, Haidian District, Beijing, 100875, China

    Liang Jiao & Yuan Jiang

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  1. Shengjie Wang
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Correspondence to Liang Jiao.

Electronic supplementary material

ESM 1

Correlations between the tree-ring width chronology of Schrenk spruce and the common climate indicators (mean temperature, mean minimum temperature, mean maximum temperature and precipitation) during 1960-2016. Dotted lines represent significance at the 0.05 level, and the long dashed lines represent significance at the 0.01 level. c: current year, p: previous year (PNG 966 kb)

High Resolution Image (EPS 74 kb)

ESM 2

Variation of annual TN90p5-9 (a) and tree-ring index and their trends (b); Basal area increment (BAI) curve and its tendency (c) during 1960-2016 (PNG 498 kb)

High Resolution Image (EPS 342 kb)

ESM 3

Information about the sampling sites and meteorological stations (DOCX 16 kb)

ESM 4

Definitions of extreme climate indices (DOCX 19 kb)

ESM 5

Extreme year of TN90p5–9 reconstruction series (DOCX 16 kb)

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Wang, S., Jiao, L., Jiang, Y. et al. Extreme climate historical variation based on tree-ring width record in the Tianshan Mountains of northwestern China. Int J Biometeorol 64, 2127–2139 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-020-02003-x

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