Decadal Temperature Variations Over the Northwestern Tibetan Plateau Deduced From a 489‐Year Ice Core Stable Isotopic Record

Abstract

AbstractInformation on decadal temperature variations over the northwestern Tibetan Plateau (TP) is still very limited due to a lack of long‐term instrumental data. In this paper, we present a 489‐year (1524–2012 A.D.) reconstruction of annual mean temperature for the northwestern TP using the δ18O record of a 58.82 meter‐long shallow ice core retrieved on the Chongce ice cap in the western Kunlun Mountains. The reconstructed temperature exhibits significant decadal variations, which were mainly driven by the Atlantic Multidecadal Variability. Decadal temperature variation during the Little Ice Age (LIA) is significantly larger than that during the post‐industrial warming period, possibly due to such external forcing as large fluctuations of solar activity and frequent major volcanic eruptions during the LIA. In addition, our reconstruction shows that the recent warming since the 1980s is moderate, comparable to an earlier warm interval in the mid‐20th century, which may partly explain the relatively stable status of glaciers in this region since 1970s.