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Climatic change in southern Kazakhstan since 1850 C.E. inferred from tree rings

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Abstract

Although global warming is an indisputable fact, there is still uncertainty about how climate change will occur at regional levels. Kazakhstan is the largest landlocked country in the world. To best manage this country’s limited water resources, socio-economic development and environmental protection, a solid understanding of regional climate change impacts is needed. In this study, tree-ring width and δ13C chronologies were established based on 99 tree-ring samples of Schrenk spruce (Picea schrenkiana Fisch. et Mey.) collected in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Climate response analysis between the tree-ring chronologies and climate data indicates that summer mean temperature is the strongest climate signal recorded by tree-ring δ13C. We reconstructed temperature change in southern Kazakhstan since 1850 C.E. using the tree-ring δ13Ccorr chronology. The results show that the temperatures in southern Kazakhstan have risen at a rate of about 0.27 °C per decade over the past 166 years. However, the rate has increased by as much as 0.44 °C per decade over the past 30 years. Analyses of temperature and precipitation data show that the climate has alternated between warm-dry and cold-humid periods over the past 166 years. The extreme droughts of 1879, 1917 and 1945 were caused by the combination of continuously high temperatures and reduced precipitation.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA20100306), National Natural Science Foundation of China Projects (41975110, 41675152, 41805130), Basic Research Operating Expenses of the Central-level Non-profit Research Institutes (IDM2016006) and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2019M650806).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Climate Change Research Center, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    Ruibo Zhang

  2. Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters/Joint International Research Laboratory of Climate and Environment Change/Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster, Ministry of Education, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China

    Ruibo Zhang

  3. Institute of Desert Meteorology, China Meteorological Administration/Key Laboratory of Tree-ring Physical and Chemical Research of China Meteorological Administration/Key Laboratory of Tree-ring Ecology of Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region, Urumqi, 830002, China

    Ruibo Zhang, Li Qin, Huaming Shang & Shulong Yu

  4. Key Laboratory of Western China’s Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Xiaohua Gou & Wuji Zheng

  5. Almaty Branch of Kazakh Scientific Research Institute of Forestry, Ministries of Agriculture, Almaty, Republic of Kazakhstan

    Bulkajyr T. Mambetov & Utebekova Ainur

  6. Meteorology and Hydrology Department, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty, Republic of Kazakhstan

    Kainar Bolatov & Aigerim Bolatova

  7. Kazakh National Agrarian University (KazNAU), Ministry of Education and Science, Almaty, Republic of Kazakhstan

    Utebekova Ainur

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  1. Ruibo Zhang
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  2. Li Qin
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  10. Aigerim Bolatova
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Zhang, R., Qin, L., Shang, H. et al. Climatic change in southern Kazakhstan since 1850 C.E. inferred from tree rings. Int J Biometeorol 64, 841–851 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-020-01873-5

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