NOAA/WDS Paleoclimatology - China Regional 22,000 Year Annual Temperature and Precipitation Reconstructions

Identifying the position of the Current Warm Period (CWP) in the context of the long-term climatic trend is vital for understanding the impact of human activity on climate change. Reconstructions of summer temperature and precipitation in eight sub-regions of China over the past 22,000 years show that the CWP summer temperature and precipitation in these sub-regions are all lower than in the Early to Middle Holocene. The timing of the Holocene temperature and precipitation peaks in northern China (including Northwest China, North China, and Northeast China) is mainly determined by orbital forcing. Greenhouse gas forcing and the land ice-sheet help to fine-tune the timing of the climate maxima. These findings show that the climate since the Last Glacial Maximum in northern China is more sensitive to non-anthropogenic external forcings, whereas the summer precipitation in Southwest China since the early 20th century is controlled more by anthropogenically forced changes.