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General characteristics of temperature variation in China during the last two millennia. | |
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General characteristics of temperature variation in China during the last two millennia. Geophysical Research Letters 10.1029/2001GL014485, 11 May 2002 Yang Bao Institute of Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences,China Achim Braeuning Institute for Geography, University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany Kathleen R. Johnson Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA Yafeng Shi Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, China |
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ABSTRACT: Three alternate China-wide temperature composites covering the last 2000 years were established by combining multiple paleoclimate proxy records obtained from ice cores, tree rings, lake sediments and historical documents. Five periods of temperature variation can be identified: a warm stage in AD 0-240, a cold interval between AD 240 and 800, a return to warm conditions from AD 800-1400, including the Medieval Warm Period between AD 800-1100, the cool Little Ice Age period between 1400-1920, and the present warm stage since 1920. Regional temperature variation is found during AD 800-1100, when warm conditions occurred in Eastern China and in the northeastern Tibetan Plateau and in AD 1150-1380, when the southern Tibetan Plateau experienced a warm interval. In contrast, evidence for cool conditions during the LIA is more consistent among the proxy records. The temperature reconstructions for China and the Northern Hemisphere show good agreement over the past millennium. |
| DATA: Download the reconstructed China temperature data from the WDC Paleo Archive. |
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This research was supported by the Innovation Project of the
Chinese Academy of Sciences (KZCX1-10-02), 973 Projects (G2000048700),
and the Innovation project of Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and
Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CACX2100919).
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AGU website. |
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Contact Us National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 16 October 2002
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