The northern Tibetan Plateau (TP) is sensitive to climate change as a result of the joint influences of the Asian monsoon and the mid-latitude westerlies. Unfortunately, palaeoclimate data from this region are very rare, especially considering high resolution records of the Late Holocene. In addition, the temperature -moisture association in this region is still under debate. A 350cm sediment core KSS-V covering the past 1600 years was obtained from Kusai Lake (35°37'~ 35°50'N, 93°15'?93°38'E) in the Hoh Xil region of the northern TP. The high sedimentation rate allows us to investigate the climate variations at inter-annual to inter-decadal time scales. Mainly authigenic, fine-grained carbonates were used for stable carbon and oxygen isotope analyses. The palaeoclimatic significance of the isotope records was evaluated and the climate variations over the past 1600 years were reconstructed. Within the alpine lakes, the aquatic organisms increase when temperature rises, and prefer to utilize the 12C in total dissolved inorganic carbon (TDIC) of lake water, leading to the relative enrichment of ~(13)C in the lake water, which was subsequently preserved in authigenic carbonates precipitated from the water column. Hence, the variation of delta~(13)C value is mainly constrained by the aquatic productivity in response to the regional temperature change. On the other hand, the main factor influencing oxygen isotope composition in closed lakes is the regional effective moisture, i.e. the precipitation/evaporation ratio (P/E). Positive delta~(18)O values generally indicate reduced effective moisture,and vice versa. Stable carbon and oxygen isotopes of fine-grained,authigenic carbonates were investigated as proxies of aquatic productivity mostly driven by temperature, and the precipitation/evaporation ratio, respectively. The resulting inferences suggest that the climate was relatively cold and wet between 400A.D. and 600A.D. corresponding to the Dark Age Cold Period (DACP). A warm and dry period occurred thereafter and terminated at 1400 A.D. which is consistent with the Medieval Warm Period (MWP). Meanwhile, delta~(13)C和 delta~(18)O reached maximum values of 5.09 and 4.01 respectively, which reflects the climate instability. In the 20th century, warm and dry conditions were established reflecting the consequences of global warming. The reconstructed cold-wet and warm-dry climate patterns of climate conditions are different from previously proposed combinations of cold-dry and warm-wet conditions. Temperature-driven evaporation changes probably dominated the variations in regional effective moisture during warmer periods whilst frequent mid-latitude cyclone activities probably caused increased precipitation during colder intervals.