Determining changes in the average minimum winter temperature of Horqin Sandy Land using tree ring records

Abstract

Horqin Sandy Land, a region in China that suffers from desertification, has become a primary economic zone in Inner Mongolia MengDong. Ecological and environmental problems continue to affect the local environment and human survival, becoming one of the bottlenecks to economic and social development. Thus, research on the characteristics of climatic variation is urgently required. This study used the comprehensive timeline for the regional tree wheel width of Horqin Sandy Land to reconstruct the average minimum winter temperatures of the study area. The timeline, which has been in use for 183 years, was established using core samples from the annual growth rings of elm trees in 10 sampling sites. For 181 years (1826–2006), varying minimum temperatures were observed: a gentle wave stage (1826–1923), an intense cooling stage (1923–1957), and a considerable heating stage (1957–2006). The longest continuous heating stage was observed from 1957 to 2006, during which time the average minimum temperature was −16.81 °C, a value greater than the mean temperature over the entire study period. The coldest 10 years occurred during the 1950s, until 1957, at which point the temperature sharply increased. The next 50 years exhibited a general warming trend until 2000. This period reflected a time span with the warmest minimum temperature and displayed a warming trend rate of 0.575 °C/10 years and an overall increase of up to 1.5° every 50 years. A continued rise in temperature is predicted to cause a wider range and longer time scale of ecological and environmental problems.