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Reconstruction of the springtime East Asian Subtropical Jet and Western Pacific pattern from a millennial-length Taiwanese tree-ring chronology

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Abstract

The East Asian subtropical jet (EAJ) and the closely related Western Pacific pattern (WP) are among the most important features in global atmospheric dynamics, but little is known about their long-term variability. This study presents reconstructions of the Spring EAJ index (EAJI) and the Spring WP index (WPI) based on significant relationships identified between mean values for these features and a millennial length tree-ring width chronology of Chamaecyparis obtusa var. formosana, a high-mountain cloud forest species from northeastern Taiwan. Tree-ring based reconstructions of high pass filtered versions of the EAJI and WPI (EAJI 5YR and WPI 5YR) presented herein explain 42 and 31 % of the WPI 5YR and EAJI 5YR, respectively, and display acceptable reliability back to A.D. 1237. A significant trend present in the long-term variance of the reconstructed EAJI and WPI after A.D. 1860 suggests long-term increasing variability in the spring mean latitudinal placement and/or the strength/breadth of the EAJ core region near Taiwan and Japan and in the trajectory of the EAJ over the North Pacific. Related features affected by changes in the EAJ include the North Pacific storm track and Asian Dust transport.

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Acknowledgments

Our thanks to Mr. C.-L. Lin and the personnel of the Taiwan Forest Conservation Agency, also to C–S. Kang, Y.-H. Lan, S.-K. Huang, L.-S. Chiang, P.-Y. Chen, T.-T. Chen, C.-W. Yiu, and S.-W. Hsu for their assistance in the field and in the lab. Many of the figures were modified from images produced on the KNMI (Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute) website (http://climexp.knmi.nl). Support for the Twentieth Century Reanalysis Project dataset is provided by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (DOE INCITE) program, and Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER), and by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climate Program Office. This research was partially funded by NSC Grant Numbers NSC 97-2627-M-002-023 and NSC 98-2627-M-002-011, and by the NSF Paleoclimate program, award ATM 04-02474.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    W. E. Wright

  2. School of Forestry and Resource Conservation, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

    B. T. Guan & S.-T. Chang

  3. Earth System Laboratory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA

    Y.-H. Tseng

  4. Biology and Paleoenvironment, Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, NY, USA

    E. R. Cook

  5. Department of Geoscience, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

    K.-Y. Wei

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Wright, W.E., Guan, B.T., Tseng, YH. et al. Reconstruction of the springtime East Asian Subtropical Jet and Western Pacific pattern from a millennial-length Taiwanese tree-ring chronology. Clim Dyn 44, 1645–1659 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-014-2402-3

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