Comparisons of drought variability between central High Asia and monsoonal Asia: Inferred from tree rings

Abstract

Severe drought is a serious natural disaster that frequently strikes East Asia, highlighting the need to understanding its drought regime and the associations with Asian monsoon. Tree-ring-based drought reconstructions provide invaluable paleoclimatic archives for detecting regional and large-scale drought variability and their potential forcings. We herein reviewed many drought reconstructions from central High Asia and monsoonal Asia and compared their similarities and differences, as well as their linkages to Asia monsoon. We compared the decadal-scale variability of six drought reconstructions for the central High Asia, where differing drought variations were found between the western and eastern portions. Seven drought reconstructions were reviewed for monsoonal Asia, from which a difference in drought variability was observed between the northern and southern parts. Therefore, we compared the drought variations of the four sub-regions of western and eastern parts of central High Asia, as well as northern and southern portions of monsoonal Asia. ENSO activity and sea surface temperature of western Pacific and northern Indian Oceans, coupled with Asian monsoon, play an important role in modulating drought variability of much area of the East Asia. An improved denser multi-index tree-ring network of longer length for East Asia is necessary for the establishment of more reliable large-scale drought reconstruction.