Determining changes in the average minimum winter temperature of Horqin Sandy Land using tree ring records

Horqin Sandy Land, a region in China that suffers from desertification, has become a primary economic zone in Inner Mongolia MengDong. Ecological and environmental problems continue to affect the local environment and human survival, becoming one of the bottlenecks to economic and social development...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Theoretical and applied climatology 2016-02, Vol.123 (3-4), p.703-710
Main Authors: Ma, Long, Liu, TingXi, Wang, JingRu, Ji, LanHong, Gao, RuiZhong
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aquatic Pollution
Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution
Atmospheric Sciences
Climate
Climatology
cooling
Desertification
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Ecology
Economics
Environment
growth rings
heat
Heating
humans
Original Paper
Temperature
trees
Ulmus
Waste Water Technology
Water Management
Water Pollution Control
Winter
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Summary:Horqin Sandy Land, a region in China that suffers from desertification, has become a primary economic zone in Inner Mongolia MengDong. Ecological and environmental problems continue to affect the local environment and human survival, becoming one of the bottlenecks to economic and social development. Thus, research on the characteristics of climatic variation is urgently required. This study used the comprehensive timeline for the regional tree wheel width of Horqin Sandy Land to reconstruct the average minimum winter temperatures of the study area. The timeline, which has been in use for 183 years, was established using core samples from the annual growth rings of elm trees in 10 sampling sites. For 181 years (1826–2006), varying minimum temperatures were observed: a gentle wave stage (1826–1923), an intense cooling stage (1923–1957), and a considerable heating stage (1957–2006). The longest continuous heating stage was observed from 1957 to 2006, during which time the average minimum temperature was −16.81 °C, a value greater than the mean temperature over the entire study period. The coldest 10 years occurred during the 1950s, until 1957, at which point the temperature sharply increased. The next 50 years exhibited a general warming trend until 2000. This period reflected a time span with the warmest minimum temperature and displayed a warming trend rate of 0.575 °C/10 years and an overall increase of up to 1.5° every 50 years. A continued rise in temperature is predicted to cause a wider range and longer time scale of ecological and environmental problems.
ISSN:0177-798X
1434-4483
DOI:10.1007/s00704-015-1382-5