Tree-ring δ¹⁸O record of samples from the Tibetan Plateau, supplement to: Wernicke, Jakob; Hochreuther, Philipp; Grießinger, Jussi; Zhu, Haifeng; Wang, Lily; Bräuning, Achim (2016): Multi-century humidity reconstructions from the southeastern Tibetan Plateau inferred from tree-ring d18O. Global and Planetary Change

• Main Authors: Wernicke, Jakob, Hochreuther, Philipp, Grießinger, Jussi, Zhu, Haifeng, Wang, Lily, Bräuning, Achim
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA - Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science 2016
• Subjects: Pacific; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.1594/pangaea.869841; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.869841

We present two new multi-century long tree-ring d18O chronologies from the southeastern Tibetan Plateau. The longer chronology dates back to 1353 CE, representing the longest annually resolved d18O chronology in the region, covering 660 years (1353-2012 CE). Both chronologies show strong relations to summer season precipitation, relative humidity, and temperature. We applied linear transfer functions and developed a summer season precipitation and a summer season relative humidity reconstruction. Moisture conditions during the past six centuries were characterized by a more humid period during 1700-1850 CE and a drying trend since the mid-19th century. Spatial correlations between the d18O chronologies and gridded reanalysis data (ERA-20C) revealed strong regional and remote associations to west central Asian, northeastern Europe, and to the western equatorial Pacific. These findings imply a potential influence of (i) atmospheric wave trains emanating from the North Atlantic and (ii) equatorial Pacific sea surface temperatures on the moisture variability over southeastern Tibet.