Precipitation Variations in China’s Altay Mountains Detected from Tree Rings Dating Back to AD 1615

Abstract

As the primary mountain range in Central Asia, the Altay Mountains receive water vapor carried by westerly circulation, resulting in relatively abundant local precipitation and lush pastures in all seasons. Consequently, it has become one of the important transportation routes between Asia and Europe. The exploration of long-term variations in precipitation is meaningful for understanding the ebb and flow of the Asia–Europe steppe trade routes. However, previous dendroclimatological studies of the Altay Mountains focused more on temperature changes than precipitations variations. We carried out a 404-year precipitation reconstruction based on the tree rings of Siberian larch growing on the south slopes of the Altay Mountains, which could explain 45.9% of the variance observed in the February–October precipitation. Our reconstruction demonstrated some severe drought events which could be found in the historical documents, such as the drought in the late Ming Dynasty (1640s) and the Ding-Wu Disaster (1870s). The spatial correlation analysis, cross-wavelet spectrum and wavelet coherency analysis indicated that the precipitation variations in the study area may be related to the ENSO and NAO. This study presents a robust precipitation reconstruction of the southern Altay Mountains, serving as a reference for future research on large-scale climatic forces acting on Altay precipitation.