NOAA/WDS Paleoclimatology - Tibetan Plateau 440 Year August-September Temperature Reconstructions

To assess the recent warming on the Tibetan Plateau (TP), some tree-ring-based temperature reconstructions have been performed. However, most of the previous studies focused on the local or regional scale. In this study, we analyzed the recent variability of August-September temperature using observations from 79 TP meteorological stations, and the observed records were extended back to 1,572 based on a tree-ring maximum density network comprising 17 sites. Moreover, the future August-September temperature scenarios on the TP are also presented using the ensemble mean of five regional climate models. The tree-ring maximum late-wood density network shows good capacity to reconstruct the August-September temperature variability at the spatial scale of the whole TP (i.e., 79-station average; r1951-2014 = 0.80, P < 0.01). The reconstruction suggests that the instrumental epoch is the warmest interval of August-September over the past four and a half centuries on the TP, and the decadal-scale August-September warming since the 1960s is unprecedented. The ensemble simulation of five regional climate models indicates that persistent August-September warming will occur on the TP in the future. The magnitude of August-September warming is approximately 1.56 ± 0.30C and 3.02 ± 0.29C over the period 2006-2049 under the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 4.5 and P8.5 scenarios, respectively. These results imply a further ecological and environmental change on the TP linked to the persistent warming in the future.