Understanding the temporal variations of extreme floods that occur in response to climate change is essential to anticipate the trends in flood magnitude and frequency in the context of global warming. However, long-t...Understanding the temporal variations of extreme floods that occur in response to climate change is essential to anticipate the trends in flood magnitude and frequency in the context of global warming. However, long-term records of paleofloods in arid regions are scarce, thus preventing a thorough understanding of such events. In this study, a reconstruction of paleofloods over the past 300 years was conducted through an analysis of grain sizes from the sediments of Kanas Lake in the Altay Mountains of northwestern China. Results showed that grain parameters and frequency distributions can be used to infer possible abrupt environmental events within the lake sedimentary sequence, and two extreme flood events corresponding to ca. 1736–1765 AD and ca. 1890 AD were further identified based on canonical discriminant analysis(CDA) and coarse percentile versus median grain size(C-M) pattern analysis, both of which occurred during warmer and wetter climate conditions by referring to tree-ring records. These two flood events are also evidenced by lake sedimentary records in the Altay and Tianshan mountains. Furthermore, through a comparison with other records, the flood event from ca. 1736–1765 AD in the study region seems to have occurred in both the arid central Asia and the Alps in Europe, and thus may have been associated with changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation(NAO) index.展开更多
Nature's greatest splendors are often secreted in the remotest of spots. This is certainly true of Kanas Lake, deep in the Altay Mountains of northern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. This area of sublime, and as...Nature's greatest splendors are often secreted in the remotest of spots. This is certainly true of Kanas Lake, deep in the Altay Mountains of northern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. This area of sublime, and as yet unsullied, natural beauty is home to 2,000 people of the Tuwa ethnic minority. The ancestry of these herder-hunters is unclear. Certain anthropologists believe that they are descended from Genghis Khan's "Mongol hordes" that swept through on their 13th century rampage of Central Asia and Europe. Others argue that they are the posterity of Siberian migrants, and cousins to the Tuvan people of Russia.展开更多
基金Under the auspices of National Key Research and Development Program of China(No.2017YFA0603400)National Science Foundation of China(No.41671200,U1603242)
文摘Understanding the temporal variations of extreme floods that occur in response to climate change is essential to anticipate the trends in flood magnitude and frequency in the context of global warming. However, long-term records of paleofloods in arid regions are scarce, thus preventing a thorough understanding of such events. In this study, a reconstruction of paleofloods over the past 300 years was conducted through an analysis of grain sizes from the sediments of Kanas Lake in the Altay Mountains of northwestern China. Results showed that grain parameters and frequency distributions can be used to infer possible abrupt environmental events within the lake sedimentary sequence, and two extreme flood events corresponding to ca. 1736–1765 AD and ca. 1890 AD were further identified based on canonical discriminant analysis(CDA) and coarse percentile versus median grain size(C-M) pattern analysis, both of which occurred during warmer and wetter climate conditions by referring to tree-ring records. These two flood events are also evidenced by lake sedimentary records in the Altay and Tianshan mountains. Furthermore, through a comparison with other records, the flood event from ca. 1736–1765 AD in the study region seems to have occurred in both the arid central Asia and the Alps in Europe, and thus may have been associated with changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation(NAO) index.
文摘Nature's greatest splendors are often secreted in the remotest of spots. This is certainly true of Kanas Lake, deep in the Altay Mountains of northern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. This area of sublime, and as yet unsullied, natural beauty is home to 2,000 people of the Tuwa ethnic minority. The ancestry of these herder-hunters is unclear. Certain anthropologists believe that they are descended from Genghis Khan's "Mongol hordes" that swept through on their 13th century rampage of Central Asia and Europe. Others argue that they are the posterity of Siberian migrants, and cousins to the Tuvan people of Russia.