scholarly journals Dendrochronological Reconstruction of June Drought (PDSI) from 1731–2016 for the Western Mongolian Plateau

Atmosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 839
Author(s):  
Liang Shi ◽  
Guangxin Li ◽  
Hongyan Liu ◽  
Jeffery P. Dech ◽  
Mei Zhou ◽  
...  

Droughts are a recurrent phenomenon in the semiarid forest-steppe ecotone of Mongolia with negative consequences for tree growth and agricultural management. In order to better cope with the uncertainty of a changing climate, the study of historical drought and its effects on forests could provide useful insights into ecosystem responses to climate variability. Siberian larch (Larix sibirica) is a dominant tree species in Western Mongolia that provides a valuable source of proxy data in the form of annual rings. We used dendrochronological techniques to establish a standard master chronology and analyze the relationship between annual ring widths and climatic factors. Correlation analyses revealed that the strongest associations of tree-ring index (TRI) values for the master chronology to direct climate variables were June temperature (r = −0.36, p < 0.01) and precipitation (r = 0.39, p < 0.01). The master chronology was strongly correlated to Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) for June (r = 0.606, p < 0.001), and this variable (PDSIJun) was chosen for reconstruction. A simple linear regression of PDSIJun based on TRI explained 35.4% of the total variance for the period 1965–2016 and based on this model the PDSIJun changes from 1731–2016 were reconstructed. Split–sample calibration–verification tests were conducted to evaluate the quality of the model used for climate reconstruction. In the past 286 years, the number of non-drought years (PDSI > 0) was low, with a frequency of only 14.1% of the total reconstruction years. Extreme drought (PDSIJun < −2.70) occurred frequently in the 19th and early and late 20th centuries. Multi-taper method (MTM) spectra and wavelet analysis showed that the reconstructed PDSI series had high and low frequency periods (2.4–3.3 and 85–92 years). Our findings provide an understanding of the drought history of the semiarid forest-steppe ecotone of western Mongolia.

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tongwen Zhang ◽  
Shulong Yu ◽  
Yujiang Yuan ◽  
Liping Huang ◽  
Shengxia Jiang

Abstract Forty-one living larch (Larix principis-rupprechtii) trees collected from two sampling sites in 1310–1530 m a.s.l. in the southern Greater Higgnan Mountains in the northeastern China are used to develop a regional tree-ring width chronology. The credible chronology spans 185 years from 1830 to 2014. The results of correlation analyses indicate that moisture is the main climatic factor controlling radial growth of larch trees in this mountainous area. Spatial correlation proves that the regional tree-ring width chronology contains climatic signals representative for a large area including the eastern Mongolian Plateau and Nuluerhu Mountains. A comparison between the newly developed chronology and a May–July Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) reconstruction for the Ortindag Sand Land reveals similar variations, particularly in the low-frequency domain. The tree-ring records also capture a severe and sustained drying trend recorded in the 1920s across a wide area of northern China.


Author(s):  
Arthur M. Greene ◽  
Richard Seager

We examine variability and change components of precipitation and minimum and maximum daily temperatures, and the derived variables potential evapotranspiration (PET) and the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI), over rangelands in the region 30-50N, 100- 125W. We focus on areas administered by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), with a view toward understanding how future climate variations may affect ecosystems, and ultimately, grazing on these lands. Based on an analysis of the annual precipitation cycle we adopt a three-season partition for the year, classifying land areas by season of maximum precipitation; this yields a coherent subregional map. Masking with a combined BLM/BIA footprint, we find that in all subregions both tmin and tmax have increased in response to anthropogenic forcing, the rate being generally greater for tmax. Significant precipitation trends are not detected, whereas PET exhibits significant upward trends in all regions. While PET-normalized precipitation, as well as PDSI, do not exhibit significant trends individually (by variable and region), the fact that most trend downward nevertheless suggests a systematic drying. We conclude that temperature constitutes the principal detectable control on hydroclimatic changes in rangelands within the study area. Although ecosystem responses may be complex, future temperature increases are expected generally to reduce soil water availability. The unforced component of variability isinvestigated with respect to several key climate indices on both interannual and decadal time scales.


Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 780
Author(s):  
Jianfeng Peng ◽  
Jingru Li ◽  
Jinbao Li ◽  
Xuan Li ◽  
Jiayue Cui ◽  
...  

Assessing the characteristics and limiting factors of tree growth is of practical significance for environmental studies and climatic reconstruction, especially in climate transition zones. In this study, four sites of Pinus armandii Franeh are investigated to understand regional climate-tree growth response in Mt. Yao, central China. Based on the high similarity of four residual chronologies and high correlations between chronologies and climatic factors, we analyzed the correlations of regional residual chronology with monthly climatic factors and the self-calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index (scPDSI) from 1961–2016. The results indicate that the hydrothermal combination of prior August and current May and the scPDSI in May are main limiting factors of regional tree growth in Mt. Yao. The results of stepwise regression models also show that temperature and scPDSI in May are the main limiting factors of tree growth, but the limiting effect of scPDSI is more than temperature in this month. Through the analysis of the number of tree growth years corresponding to high temperature and high scPDSI, it was further confirmed that scPDSI in May is the main limiting factor on the growth of P. armandii in Mt. Yao. However, the influence of scPDSI in May has weakened, while temperature in May has increasingly significant influence on tree growth. The above findings will help improve our understanding of forest dynamics in central China under global climate change.


2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 957-974 ◽  
Author(s):  
É. Boucher ◽  
J. Guiot ◽  
E. Chapron

Abstract. We present the first spatially explicit field reconstruction of the summer (DJF) Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) for the Southern Hemisphere. Our multi-proxy reconstruction focuses on Southern South America (SSA, south of 20° S) and is based on a novel spectral analogue method that aims at reconstructing low PDSI frequencies independently from higher frequencies. The analysis of past regimes and trends in extreme wet spells and droughts reveals considerable geographical and temporal variations over the last millennium in SSA. Although recent changes are in some cases notorious, most were not exceptional at the scale of the last thousand years. Our reconstruction highlights that low frequency water availability fluctuations in Patagonia were generally in antiphase with the rest of the subcontinent. Providing the fact that modern patterns of changes are transferable to the past, we show that such antiphases within SSA's hydroclimate could be attributed to the spatially contrasted response of summer PDSI to the Antarctic Oscillation (AAO). However, El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) signals are also embedded within the PDSI series during the 20th century. All these ocean-atmospheric forcings acted synergically, but the dominant influence appeared highly compartmentalized through space, highlighting clear AAO- (e.g. South Patagonia) and ENSO- (e.g. the Pampas) dominated regions. Our results therefore emphasize the complexity of water-availability fluctuations in SSA and their important dependence on external ocean-atmospheric forcings.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiangtao Wang

It remains unclear how drought is varying under climatic change. Quantifying the relationship between drought and climatic factors is crucial for predicting future drought risk under global climatic change. Correlations of annual drought severity index (DSI) with climatic factors were examined from 2000 to 2011 on the Tibetan Plateau. Spatially averaged DSI increased with increasing precipitation and minimum relative humidity, but decreased with increasing sunshine. The degrees of correlation between DSI and climatic factors varied with vegetation types. The change magnitude of DSI decreased with increasing temperature, precipitation and vapor pressure, but increased with increasing wind speed and sunshine. Therefore, clarifying the correlation between drought and climatic change need consider ecosystem types and their local climate on the Tibetan Plateau.


2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-198
Author(s):  
É. Boucher ◽  
J. Guiot ◽  
E. Chapron

Abstract. We present the first highly resolved millennial reconstruction of the summer (DJF) Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) for the Southern Hemisphere. Our multi-proxy reconstruction focuses on Southern South-America (SSA, south of 20° S) and is based on a novel spectral analogue method that aims at reconstructing the low frequencies of PDSI series independently from higher frequencies. The analysis of past regimes and long-term fluctuations in the PDSI reveals considerable geographical and temporal variations over the last millennia in SSA. Hence, recent changes, although some were very significant, were rarely exceptional over the last thousand years. However, from the point of view of extremes, recent PDSI values associated to extreme droughts (e.g. in the Andes) or wet spells (e.g. in the Pampas) were unequalled over the last thousand years. A major feature of our reconstruction is that it highlights that low frequency water availability fluctuations in Patagonia were generally in antiphase with those found on the rest of the sub-continent. We show that such antiphases within SSA's hydroclimate could be attributed the Antarctic Oscillation (AAO). The AAO was an important climatic driver during the calibration period (1930–1993) in SSA, and possibly over the last millennia as well. ENSO and PDO signals are also embedded, to a lesser extent, within the PDSI series, but the influence of these forcings has considerably varied through time and space over the last thousand years. Our results therefore highlight the complexity of water-availability fluctuations in SSA and their important dependence on external ocean-atmospheric forcings.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sinta Berliana S. ◽  
Indah Susanti ◽  
Bambang Siswanto ◽  
Amalia Nurlatifah ◽  
Hidayatul Latifah ◽  
...  

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 174
Author(s):  
Elena A. Babushkina ◽  
Dina F. Zhirnova ◽  
Liliana V. Belokopytova ◽  
Nivedita Mehrotra ◽  
Santosh K. Shah ◽  
...  

Improvement of dendrochronological crops yield reconstruction by separate application of earlywood and latewood width chronologies succeeded in rain-fed semiarid region. (1) Background: Tree-ring width chronologies have been successfully applied for crops yield reconstruction models. We propose application of separated earlywood and latewood width chronologies as possible predictors improving the fitness of reconstruction models. (2) Methods: The generalized yield series of main crops (spring wheat, spring barley, oats) were investigated in rain-fed and irrigated areas in semiarid steppes of South Siberia. Chronologies of earlywood, latewood, and total ring width of Siberian larch (Larix sibirica Ledeb.) growing in forest-steppe in the middle of the study area were tested as predictors of yield reconstruction models. (3) Results: In the rain-fed territory, separation of earlywood and latewood allowed increasing variation of yield explained by reconstruction model from 17.4 to 20.5%, whereas total climatic-driven component of variation was 41.5%. However, both tree-ring based models explained only 7.7% of yield variation in the irrigated territory (climate inclusion increased it to 34.8%). Low temperature sensitivity of larch growth was the main limitation of the model. A 240-year (1780–2019) history of crop failures and yield variation dynamics were estimated from the actual data and the best reconstruction model. (4) Conclusions: Presently in the study region, breeding of the environment-resistant crops varieties compensates the increase of temperature in the yield dynamics, preventing severe harvest losses. Tree-ring based reconstructions may help to understand and forecast response of the crops to the climatic variability, and also the probability of crop failures, particularly in the rain-fed territories.


2021 ◽  
Vol 193 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Erasmi ◽  
Michael Klinge ◽  
Choimaa Dulamsuren ◽  
Florian Schneider ◽  
Markus Hauck

AbstractThe monitoring of the spatial and temporal dynamics of vegetation productivity is important in the context of carbon sequestration by terrestrial ecosystems from the atmosphere. The accessibility of the full archive of medium-resolution earth observation data for multiple decades dramatically improved the potential of remote sensing to support global climate change and terrestrial carbon cycle studies. We investigated a dense time series of multi-sensor Landsat Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data at the southern fringe of the boreal forests in the Mongolian forest-steppe with regard to the ability to capture the annual variability in radial stemwood increment and thus forest productivity. Forest productivity was assessed from dendrochronological series of Siberian larch (Larix sibirica) from 15 plots in forest patches of different ages and stand sizes. The results revealed a strong correlation between the maximum growing season NDVI of forest sites and tree ring width over an observation period of 20 years. This relationship was independent of the forest stand size and of the landscape’s forest-to-grassland ratio. We conclude from the consistent findings of our case study that the maximum growing season NDVI can be used for retrospective modelling of forest productivity over larger areas. The usefulness of grassland NDVI as a proxy for forest NDVI to monitor forest productivity in semi-arid areas could only partially be confirmed. Spatial and temporal inconsistencies between forest and grassland NDVI are a consequence of different physiological and ecological vegetation properties. Due to coarse spatial resolution of available satellite data, previous studies were not able to account for small-scaled land-cover patches like fragmented forest in the forest-steppe. Landsat satellite-time series were able to separate those effects and thus may contribute to a better understanding of the impact of global climate change on natural ecosystems.


2010 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Grala ◽  
William H. Cooke

Forests constitute a large percentage of the total land area in Mississippi and are a vital element of the state economy. Although wildfire occurrences have been considerably reduced since the 1920s, there are still ~4000 wildfires each year in Mississippi burning over 24 000 ha (60 000 acres). This study focusses on recent history and various characteristics of Mississippi wildfires to provide better understanding of spatial and temporal characteristics of wildfires in the state. Geographic information systems and Mississippi Forestry Commission wildfire occurrence data were used to examine relationships between climatic and anthropogenic factors, the incidence, burned area, wildfire cause, and socioeconomic factors. The analysis indicated that wildfires are more frequent in southern Mississippi, in counties covered mostly by pine forest, and are most prominent in the winter–spring season. Proximity to roads and cities were two anthropogenic factors that had the most statistically significant correlation with wildfire occurrence and size. In addition, the validity of the Palmer Drought Severity Index as a measure of fire activity was tested for climatic districts in Mississippi. Analysis indicated that drought influences fire numbers and size during summer and fall (autumn). The strongest relationship between the Palmer Drought Severity Index and burned area was found for the southern climatic districts for the summer–fall season.


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