Warm season temperature in the Qinling Mountains (north-central China) since 1740 CE recorded by tree-ring maximum latewood density of Shensi fir

Abstract

Land-surface temperature changes lead to thermal contrasts between the land and the sea and have significant water cycle impacts particularly within global monsoon regions. Whilst such influence may dominate in the East Asian summer monsoon region, the long-term warm-season temperature dynamics in monsoonal China have not been effectively explored. Here, an annually resolved maximum latewood density (MXD) record from annual tree rings of Shensi fir (A. chensiensis) in the Qinling Mountains (north-central China) provide an East Asian summer monsoon-region relevant 270-year long March-September temperature reconstruction. Our MXD-based temperature reconstruction shows good agreement with phases of observed warming in the 1920s-1950s and 1990s-2000s, a more recent warming hiatus and earlier volcanic-induced cooling phases. Our temperature reconstruction is also significantly correlated with sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic Ocean and reveals that there is an unstable influence of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) on warm season temperature variability in north-central China. Our warm season temperature reconstruction is sensitive to summer monsoonal season moisture variations in north-central China and provides a multi century perspective on the region’s climate which is useful to improving the understanding of monsoonal East Asian climate change and anticipated future extreme drought events in northern China.