Drought occurrence and duration in central Asia are of important socioeconomic, ecological, and geophysical significance and have received increasing research attention in recent years. Understanding long-term drought trends and their driving forces require reliable records of past drought variability with broad spatial representativeness. Here, we compiled four tree-ring O-18 records from eastern central Asia (ECA) and composited them into a drought-sensitive proxy to explore regional ECA moisture variations over the past 301years (1710-2010 CE). A robust regional standardized precipitation-evapotranspiration index (SPEI) reconstruction was established based on the tree-ring cellulose O-18 fractionation mechanism and statistically significant proxy-climate relationships. We identified prominent droughts in 1710-1770, 1810-1830, and the beginning of the twenty-first century, and a regime shift to a persistently wet period from the 1880s to 2000. Our reconstruction reveals the impact of drought and pluvial patterns on the decline of Zhungar Empire, and on historical agricultural and socio-economical activities, including increased migration into ECA during the 1770-1800 pluvial. Our findings also suggest that wet conditions in the twentieth century in ECA were related to a strengthening of the westerly circulation and thus shed light on large-scale atmospheric circulation dynamics in central Asia.
1.Chinese Acad Sci, Northwest Inst Ecoenvironm & Resources, State Key Lab Cryospher Sci, Lanzhou 730000, Gansu, Peoples R China 2.Chinese Acad Sci, Inst Earth Environm, State Key Lab Loess & Quaternary Geol, Xian 710075, Shaanxi, Peoples R China 3.China Meteorol Adm, Key Lab Tree Ring Phys & Chem Res, Urumqi 830002, Peoples R China 4.Shaanxi Normal Univ, Sch Geog & Tourism, Xian 710119, Shaanxi, Peoples R China 5.Univ Arizona, Lab Tree Ring Res, Tucson, AZ 85721 USA 6.Swiss Fed Res Inst WSL, Dendrosci Grp, Zurcherstr 111, CH-8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland
Recommended Citation:
Xu, Guobao,Liu, Xiaohong,Trouet, Valerie,et al. Regional drought shifts (1710-2010) in East Central Asia and linkages with atmospheric circulation recorded in tree-ring O-18[J]. CLIMATE DYNAMICS,2019-01-01,52(1-2):713-727