Historical documents provide evidence for regional droughts preceding the political turmoil and fall of Beijing in 1644 CE,when more than 20 million people died in northern China during the late Ming famine period.How...Historical documents provide evidence for regional droughts preceding the political turmoil and fall of Beijing in 1644 CE,when more than 20 million people died in northern China during the late Ming famine period.However,the role climate and environmental changes may have played in this pivotal event in Chinese history remains unclear.Here,we provide tree-ring evidence of persistent megadroughts from1576 to 1593 CE and from 1628 to 1644 CE in northern China,which coincided with exceptionally cold summers just before the fall of Beijing.Our analysis reveals that these regional hydroclimatic extremes are part of a series of megadroughts along the Pacific Rim,which not only impacted the ecology and society of monsoonal northern China,but likely also exacerbated external geopolitical and economic pressures.This finding is corroborated by last millennium reanalysis data and numerical climate model simulations revealing internally driven Pacific sea surface temperature variations and the predominance of decadal scale La Ni?a-like conditions to be responsible for precipitation decreases over northern China,as well as extensive monsoon regions in the Americas.These teleconnection patterns provide a mechanistic explanation for reoccurring drought spells during the late Ming Dynasty and the environmental framework fostering the fall of Beijing in 1644 CE,and the subsequent demise of the Ming Dynasty.展开更多
Seasonal differences of temperature are crucial components of the Earth's climate system.However,the relatively short observational record,especially for East Asia,has limited progress in understanding seasonal di...Seasonal differences of temperature are crucial components of the Earth's climate system.However,the relatively short observational record,especially for East Asia,has limited progress in understanding seasonal differences.In this study,we identify ten tree-ring chronologies separately correlated with local winter(December-February)temperatures and twelve different tree-ring chronologies separately correlated with summer(June-August)temperatures across East Asia.Using these discrete seasonal tree-ring chronologies,we develop two independent winter and summer temperature reconstructions covering the period 1376-1995 CE for East Asia,and compare them with model simulations.Our reconstructions show a more significant volcanic cooling and earlier onset of modern warming in summer than in winter.The reconstructed summer-minus-winter temperature decreased since as early as the late 19th century,which has driven the current state of seasonal temperature difference to out of the natural variability since the 1370s.Climate models could generally reproduce the variability and trends in seasonal reconstructions,but might largely underestimate seasonal differences due to the fact that seasonal expressions on external forcing and modes of internal variability are too small.Our study highlights the importance of using proxy-based seasonal reconstructions to evaluate the performance of climate models,and implies a substantial weakening of seasonal temperature differences in the future.展开更多
Almost all proxy-based temperature reconstructions for East Asia have hitherto been designed to resolve summer or annual temperature variability.Reconstruction for the winter temperature is still lacking.Here,we repor...Almost all proxy-based temperature reconstructions for East Asia have hitherto been designed to resolve summer or annual temperature variability.Reconstruction for the winter temperature is still lacking.Here,we report an annually resolved,winter-season(December-February,DJF)temperature field reconstruction for East Asia covering the period 1300-2000 CE,based on 260 temperature-sensitive tree-ring records.The most striking feature of our new reconstruction is a significant longterm warming trend since the 14th century,which is associated with winter solar insolation at mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere and the global anthropogenic impact.The amplitude of reconstructed winter temperature change over the study period was~4.7 times greater than that for summer temperature,and the rate of winter temperature increase was~6 times as much as that of summer temperature.The results from climate model simulations were consistent with the reconstruction,showing that the amplitude and rate of temperature change in winter were greater than those in summer.The reconstruction also suggests the possible influence of volcanic eruptions,anthropogenic activities and winter solar insolation on the winter temperature variations.Our result also suggests a long-term decrease in summer-to-winter temperature difference occurred in 1625(±24 years)CE.展开更多
基金supported by the Basic Science Center for Tibetan Plateau Earth System(BSCTPES,41988101)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(32061123008)+3 种基金Ulf Büntgen and Jan Esper were supported by the ERC Advanced Grant Monostar(Ad G 882727)the Czech Science Foundation(23-08049S,HYDRO8)Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist was supported by the Swedish Research Council(Vetenskapsr?det,2018-01272)the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation(MMW 20220114)。
文摘Historical documents provide evidence for regional droughts preceding the political turmoil and fall of Beijing in 1644 CE,when more than 20 million people died in northern China during the late Ming famine period.However,the role climate and environmental changes may have played in this pivotal event in Chinese history remains unclear.Here,we provide tree-ring evidence of persistent megadroughts from1576 to 1593 CE and from 1628 to 1644 CE in northern China,which coincided with exceptionally cold summers just before the fall of Beijing.Our analysis reveals that these regional hydroclimatic extremes are part of a series of megadroughts along the Pacific Rim,which not only impacted the ecology and society of monsoonal northern China,but likely also exacerbated external geopolitical and economic pressures.This finding is corroborated by last millennium reanalysis data and numerical climate model simulations revealing internally driven Pacific sea surface temperature variations and the predominance of decadal scale La Ni?a-like conditions to be responsible for precipitation decreases over northern China,as well as extensive monsoon regions in the Americas.These teleconnection patterns provide a mechanistic explanation for reoccurring drought spells during the late Ming Dynasty and the environmental framework fostering the fall of Beijing in 1644 CE,and the subsequent demise of the Ming Dynasty.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant Nos.41888101,41602192,and 41901095)the National Key R&D Program of China(Grant No.2017YFA0603302)+2 种基金the support by the Youth Innovation Promotion Association Foundation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(Grant No.2018471)supported by the Swedish Research Council(Vetenskapsr?det,Grant No.2018-01272)funded by the Swedish Collegium for A dvanced Study through Riksbankens Jubileusfond。
文摘Seasonal differences of temperature are crucial components of the Earth's climate system.However,the relatively short observational record,especially for East Asia,has limited progress in understanding seasonal differences.In this study,we identify ten tree-ring chronologies separately correlated with local winter(December-February)temperatures and twelve different tree-ring chronologies separately correlated with summer(June-August)temperatures across East Asia.Using these discrete seasonal tree-ring chronologies,we develop two independent winter and summer temperature reconstructions covering the period 1376-1995 CE for East Asia,and compare them with model simulations.Our reconstructions show a more significant volcanic cooling and earlier onset of modern warming in summer than in winter.The reconstructed summer-minus-winter temperature decreased since as early as the late 19th century,which has driven the current state of seasonal temperature difference to out of the natural variability since the 1370s.Climate models could generally reproduce the variability and trends in seasonal reconstructions,but might largely underestimate seasonal differences due to the fact that seasonal expressions on external forcing and modes of internal variability are too small.Our study highlights the importance of using proxy-based seasonal reconstructions to evaluate the performance of climate models,and implies a substantial weakening of seasonal temperature differences in the future.
基金funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(NSFC)(Grant Nos.41888101,42001068)the National Key R&D Program of China(Grant No.2017YFA0603300)+1 种基金the Belmont Forum and JPI-Climate Collaborative Research Action“INTEGRATE”(Grant No.41661144008)supported by the Swedish Research Council(Vetenskapsradet,Grant No.2018-01272)。
文摘Almost all proxy-based temperature reconstructions for East Asia have hitherto been designed to resolve summer or annual temperature variability.Reconstruction for the winter temperature is still lacking.Here,we report an annually resolved,winter-season(December-February,DJF)temperature field reconstruction for East Asia covering the period 1300-2000 CE,based on 260 temperature-sensitive tree-ring records.The most striking feature of our new reconstruction is a significant longterm warming trend since the 14th century,which is associated with winter solar insolation at mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere and the global anthropogenic impact.The amplitude of reconstructed winter temperature change over the study period was~4.7 times greater than that for summer temperature,and the rate of winter temperature increase was~6 times as much as that of summer temperature.The results from climate model simulations were consistent with the reconstruction,showing that the amplitude and rate of temperature change in winter were greater than those in summer.The reconstruction also suggests the possible influence of volcanic eruptions,anthropogenic activities and winter solar insolation on the winter temperature variations.Our result also suggests a long-term decrease in summer-to-winter temperature difference occurred in 1625(±24 years)CE.
