Abstract
The Tibetan Plateau is a fast-warming region in China, whereby the rapid temperature increase affects regional ecosystems and mountain glaciers significantly. Long-term high-quality temperature data are urgently needed to understand how temperature has changed in the past several centuries and the underlying driving forces. In this study, we developed two tree-ring width chronologies that are more than 300 years. The two chronologies are highly consistent, indicating that the two sites were seldom disturbed by human activities. A robust tree-ring width chronology was developed using all the samples of the two sites, which represents June-July mean temperature according to statistical correlation analysis. The recent two decades are the warmest over the past three centuries, showing a regional temperature response to global warming largely contributed by human influence on climate system. Multi-decadal temperature variations in the study area have been closely linked with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation in the past three centuries, highlighting the Atlantic influence on regional climate change on the central eastern Tibetan Plateau in warm seasons.
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Data Availability
The reconstructed June-July mean temperature data are in the supplement. The two AMO series can be accessed from the National Centers for Environmental Information, NOAA (https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/paleo-search/study/12036 and https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/paleo-search/study/22031).
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Acknowledgements
We thank Yanwu Shi, Yesi Zhao, and Bowen Wang for their help in the field and the laboratory, and Xuguang Sun for the discussion about temperature driving forces.
Funding
This research was jointly funded by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2018YFA0605601), NSFC Project (Nos. 42271166, 41671193), the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions, and the Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center for Climate Change.
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JS designed the research. JS and SS performed the fieldwork and measured tree-ring width. JS, HW and JX are involved in the data analysis. JS, SS, and HW wrote the manuscript. All authors reviewed and revised the manuscript.
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Shi, J., Wang, H., Li, J. et al. Unprecedented early summer warming recorded in tree rings on the central eastern Tibetan Plateau over the past three centuries. Clim Dyn 61, 5735–5745 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-023-06881-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-023-06881-w