Original information on the long-term dry-wet index (1500-2000) in western China is obtained by integrating data on dry-wet/drought-flood conditions and precipitation amounts in the western region published over more than a decade. The integrated data sets include tree rings, ice cores, lake sediments, historical materials, etc., and there are more than 50 such data sets. In addition to widely collecting representative data sets on dry-wet changes in the western region, this study also clarifies the main characteristics of the dry-wet changes and climate zones in the western region, and the long-term dry-wet index sequence was generated by extracting representative data from different zones. The data-based dry-wet index sequence has a 10-year temporal resolution for five major characteristic climate zones in the western region over nearly four hundred years and a high resolution (annual resolution) for three regions over the past five hundred years. The five major characteristic climate zones in the western region with a 10-year dry-wet index resolution over the last four hundred years are the arid regions, plateau bodies, northern Xinjiang, Hetao region, and northeastern plateau, and the three regions with a annual resolution over the last five hundred years are the northeastern plateau, Hetao region, and northern Xinjiang. For a detailed description of the data, please refer to the data file named Introduction of Dry-Wet Index Sequence Data for West China.doc.
QIAN Weihong, LIN Xiang
In the mid-latitude region of Asia, the southeastern region is humid and affected by monsoon circulation (thus, it is referred to as the monsoon region), and the inland region is arid and controlled by the other circulation patterns (these areas include the cold and arid regions in the northern Tibetan Plateau, referred to as the westerly region). Based on the generalization of the climate change records published in recent years, the westerly region was humid in the mid-late Holocene, which was significantly different from the pattern of the Asian monsoon in the early-middle Holocene. In the past few millennia, the westerly region was arid during the Medieval Warm Period but relatively humid during the Little Ice Age. In contrast, the oxygen isotope records derived from a stalagmite in the Wanxiang Karst Cave showed that the monsoon precipitation was high in the Medieval Warm Period and low during the Little Ice Age. In the last century, especially in the last 50 years, the humidity of the arid regions in the northwest has increased, while the eastern areas of northwestern and northern China affected by the monsoon have become more arid. Moreover, in the northern and southern parts of the Tibetan Plateau, which are affected by the westerlies and the monsoon, respectively, the precipitation changes on the interdecadal and century scales have also shown an inverse phase. Based on these findings, we propose that the control zone of the westerly belt in central Asia has different humidity (precipitation) variation patterns than the monsoon region on every time scale (from millennial to interdecadal) in the modern interglacial period. The integrated research project on Holocene climate change in the arid and semi-arid regions of western China was a major research component of the project Environmental and Ecological Science for West China, which was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. The leading executive of the project was Professor Fahu Chen from Lanzhou University. The project ran from January 2006 to December 2009. The data collected by the project include the following: 1. The integrate humidity data over the Holocene in the arid regions of Central-East Asia and 12 lakes (11000-0 cal yr BP): including Lake Van, Aral Sea, Issyk-Kul, Ulunguhai Lake, Bosten Lake, Barkol Lake, Bayan Nuur, Telmen Lake, Hovsgol Nuur, Juyan Lake, Gun Nuur and Hulun Nuur. 2. The integrated humidity data over the past millennium in the arid regions of Central-East Asia and at five research sites (1000-2000): including Aral Sea, Guliya, Bosten Lake, Sugan Lake, and the Badain Juran desert. Data format: excel table.
CHEN Fahu
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