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Dust storms in northern China during the last 500 years

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Abstract

The history and mechanisms of dust storms in northern China remain unclear owing to the paucity of reliable long-term, high-resolution geological records. In this study, we reconstructed the dust storm history of the last ~500 years in northern China, based on sedimentary coarse fraction (>63 µm) of a well-dated core from Lake Daihai, Inner Mongolia. The high-resolution data reveal three intervals of frequent dust storms: AD 1520–1580, AD 1610–1720, and AD 1870–2000. The dust storm events in the Lake Daihai area were broadly synchronous with those inferred from other historical or geological records and generally occurred during cold intervals. Changes in the intensity of Siberian High and the westerlies modulated by temperature variations are the likely major factors controlling dust storm dynamics. An interesting feature is that although the intensities of dust storms have been systematically increased during the recent warming period, a clear decreasing trend within this period is evident. The recent increase in average dust storm intensity may be ascribed to an increase in particle supply resulting from a rapid increase in human activity, whereas the weakening trend was likely caused by decreases in average wind speed resulting from the recent global warming.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. U20A2078) and the Joint NSFC-ISF Research Program (NSFC Grant No. 41761144070; ISF Grant No. 2487/17).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Surface-Earth System Science, School of Earth System Science, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Shuang Zhang, Hai Xu, Guilin Zhang, Jin Zhang, Yunping Song & Sheng Xu

  2. State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi’an, 710061, China

    Jianghu Lan, Kang’en Zhou & Liangcheng Tan

  3. Institute of Earth Sciences, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 91904, Israel

    Yonaton Goldsmith, Adi Torfstein & Yehouda Enzel

  4. Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA

    Xiaomei Xu

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  1. Shuang Zhang
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Zhang, S., Xu, H., Lan, J. et al. Dust storms in northern China during the last 500 years. Sci. China Earth Sci. 64, 813–824 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-020-9730-2

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