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August‐September Temperature Variability on the Tibetan Plateau: Past, Present, and Future
Author(s) -
Duan Jianping,
Ma Zhuguo,
Li Lun,
Zheng Ziyan
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: atmospheres
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-8996
pISSN - 2169-897X
DOI - 10.1029/2019jd030444
Subject(s) - plateau (mathematics) , climate change , environmental science , climatology , representative concentration pathways , global warming , maximum temperature , mean radiant temperature , scale (ratio) , dendrochronology , physical geography , climate model , geography , geology , cartography , oceanography , mathematical analysis , mathematics , archaeology
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; r 1951–2014 = 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 ± 0.30°C and 3.02 ± 0.29°C 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.