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Twentieth-century warming preserved in a Geladaindong mountain ice core, central Tibetan Plateau

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2016

Yulan Zhang ,
Shichang Kang ,
Bjorn Grigholm ,
Yongjun Zhang ,
Susan Kaspari ,
Uwe Morgenstern ,
Jiawen Ren ,
Dahe Qin ,
Paul A. Mayewski  and
Qianggong Zhang
...Show all authors
Yulan Zhang
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, China Laboratory of Green Chemistry, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Mikkeli, Finland
Shichang Kang*
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, China CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Bjorn Grigholm
Affiliation:
Climate Change Institute and Department of Earth Sciences, University of Maine, Orono, ME, USA
Yongjun Zhang
Affiliation:
Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Surface Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Susan Kaspari
Affiliation:
Department of Geological Sciences, Central Washington University, Ellensburg, WA, USA
Uwe Morgenstern
Affiliation:
Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences, National Isotope Centre, Lower Hutt, New Zealand
Jiawen Ren
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, China
Dahe Qin
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, China
Paul A. Mayewski
Affiliation:
Climate Change Institute and Department of Earth Sciences, University of Maine, Orono, ME, USA
Qianggong Zhang
Affiliation:
CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Surface Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Zhiyuan Cong
Affiliation:
CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Surface Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Mika Sillanpää
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Green Chemistry, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Mikkeli, Finland
Margit Schwikowski
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Radiochemistry and Environmental Chemistry, Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen PSI, Switzerland
Feng Chen
Affiliation:
Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Surface Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
*
Correspondence: Shichang Kang <[email protected]>
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Abstract

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High-resolution δ18O records from a Geladaindong mountain ice core spanning the period 1477-1982 were used to investigate past temperature variations in the Yangtze River source region of the central Tibetan Plateau (TP). Annual ice-core δ18O records were positively correlated with temperature data from nearby meteorological stations, suggesting that the δ18O record represented the air temperature in the region. A generally increasing temperature trend over the past 500 years was identified, with amplified warming during the 20th century. A colder stage, spanning before the 1850s, was found to represent the Little Ice Age with colder periods occurring during the 1470s–1500s, 1580s–1660s, 1700s–20s and 1770s–1840s. Compared with other temperature records from the TP and the Northern Hemisphere, the Geladaindong ice-core record suggested that the regional climate of the central TP experienced a stronger warming trend during the 20th century than other regions. In addition, a positive relationship between the Geladaindong δ18 O values and the North Atlantic Oscillation index, combined with a wavelet analysis of δ18 O records, indicated that there was a potential atmospheric teleconnection between the North Atlantic and the central TP.

Keywords

climate changeice chronology/datingice core
Type
Paper
Information
Annals of Glaciology , Volume 57 , Issue 71 , March 2016 , pp. 70 - 80
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2016

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