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Environmental and Climatic History During the Past Centuries in the Hengduan Mountains (Southwest China) Derived from Tree Rings

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Environmental and Climatic History During the Past Centuries in the Hengduan Mountains (Southwest China) Derived from Tree Rings Environmental and Climatic History during the Past Centuries in the Hengduan Mountains (Southwest China) Derived From Tree Rings Den Naturwissenschaftlichen Fakultäten Der Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades vorgelegt von Ze-Xin Fan aus Yunnan / China Als Dissertation genehmigt von den Naturwissenschaftlichen Fakultäten der Friedrich-Alexander-Unversität Erlangen-Nürnberg Tag der Mündlichen Prüfung: 21. July 2009 Vorsitzender der Prof. Dr. Eberhard Bänsch Promotionskommision: Erstberichterstatter: Prof. Dr. Achim Bräuning Zweitberichterstatter: Prof. Dr. Dieter Eckstein Declaration I Declaration I hereby declare that my dissertation entitled: “Environmental and Climatic History during the Past Centuries in the Hengduan Mountains (Southwest China) Derived from Tree Rings” is my own work under the supervising of Prof. Dr. Achim Bräuning. The author is responsible for all data analyses and interpretation of the results. The main content work has not previously been submitted for a degree at any tertiary institution. I also confirm that I have fully acknowledged by name all of those individuals and organizations that have contributed to the research for this dissertation. Erlangen, 20.7.2009 ____________________________ Ze-Xin Fan Acknowledgements II Acknowledgements Initially I would like to express my gratitude to the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, who provided me with a 3-years fellowship during my research work in Germany, and supported me for attending the international tree-ring conferences in Latvia and Poland. I would especially like to thank Mrs. Sabine Panglung for her perfect organization of my fellowship and for patient communications. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Prof. Dr. Achim Bräuning. He helped me to set up the research plan, taught me how to approach scientific issues from various perspectives, and how to write a concise scientific paper. I would especially like to thank Prof. Bräuning and Dr. Aster Gebrekirstos for their warm friendliness and hospitality during my stay in Germany. I am very indebted to Dipl.-Geogr. Iris Burchardt who helped me building the first tree-ring chronology, gave me many invaluable suggestions during my lab work, and improved the English language of this thesis. Thanks go to Dipl.-Geogr. Peter von Schnakenburg and Dipl.- Geogr. Iris Burchardt who translated English summary into German. I highly appreciate the staff from the Institute of Geography, University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Mrs. Sabine Donner, Dr. Thomas Sokoliuk, Prof. Dr. Michael Richter, Dr. Jussi Grießinger, Dipl.-Geogr. Franziska Volland-Voigt, Dipl.-Geogr. Sebastian Feick, Dipl.-Geogr. Malanie Ehmisch-Feick and …. I am also very grateful to my Chinese promoter Prof. Dr. Cao KunFang for continually stimulating me during my study and for supporting me financially during my field work. Thanks to Prof. Dr. Li QingJun for sharing some of his tree-ring samples. My gratitude also goes to M.Sc. Zhu ShiDan and Mr. Di ChengQiang for their energetic assistance in the field, and many warm hospitable Tibetans for their enthusiastic and friendliness in those remote villages. Many thanks to Prof. Yang Bao for his invaluable suggestions on my research project and his enthusiasm and helps during my stay in Germany. I also thank Prof. Wang Lily and Prof. Ram R. Yadav for all their comments on my research program and thesis. I also thank Prof. Shao XueMei and Dr. Liang ErYuan who kindly provided their tree-ring data. I appreciate Prof. Dr. Dieter Eckstein who reviewed this thesis. Thanks to Prof. Dr. Rupert Bäumler, Prof. Dr. Werner Nezadal and Prof. Dr. Michael Richter who gave the examination. Thanks also go to colleagues Dr. Zhang JiaoLin, Dr. Chen JunWen, Dr. Wei ZuoDong, Dr. Zhang ChuanLin, Dr. Hao GuangYou, Dr. Zhang YongJiang, M.Sc. Chen YaJun, M.Sc. Wang AiYing, M.Sc. Fu PeiLi, Dr. Tian QinHua, Dr. Li JinBao for their friendliness and help. Finally, I would like to express my sincere respects to my parents and to my parents-in-law for their continuous support. Most of all, I want to express my special thanks to my wife Mrs. Ji ShiMei and my son Fan XiaoHui, for all their consideration, understanding, patience and love. Table of contents III Table of Contents Declaration................................................................................................................................................... I Acknowledgements.....................................................................................................................................II Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................................... III Abbreviations............................................................................................................................................ VI List of Figures..........................................................................................................................................VII List of Tables............................................................................................................................................XII 1. Introduction and Research Aims......................................................................................................1 1.1 Climate Change .........................................................................................................................1 1.2 Tree Rings as Climate Proxies .................................................................................................2 1.3 Tree Growth and Climate.........................................................................................................3 1.3.1 Tree-Ring Formation..............................................................................................................3 1.3.2 Dendroclimatology..................................................................................................................4 1.3.3 Climate-Growth Responses ....................................................................................................4 1.3.4 Tree-Ring Parameters ............................................................................................................5 1.4 Climatological Relevancy of the Tibetan Plateau...................................................................6 1.5 Dendroclimatology on the Tibetan Plateau.............................................................................7 1.6 Dendroclimatology in the Hengduan Mountains..................................................................10 1.7 Objectives and Research Questions.......................................................................................11 1.8 Outlines of this Thesis .............................................................................................................12 2. Physical Setting...................................................................................................................................13 2.1 Location of the Study Area.....................................................................................................13 2.2 Climate Conditions..................................................................................................................15 2.3 Regional Climate Patterns......................................................................................................18 2.4 Vegetation ................................................................................................................................20 2.5 Land Use and Forest Disturbances........................................................................................24 3. Data and Methods ..............................................................................................................................26 3.1 Tree-Ring Network..................................................................................................................26 3.2 Tree-Ring Measurement and Cross-Dating..........................................................................26 3.3 Tree-Ring Standardization.....................................................................................................29 3.4 Common Signal Extraction ....................................................................................................31 3.5 Climate Data ............................................................................................................................33 3.6 Calibration and Reconstruction.............................................................................................33 3.6.1 Climate-Growth Response....................................................................................................33 3.6.2 Transfer Functions...............................................................................................................34 Table of contents IV 4. Climate-Growth Responses of High-Elevation Conifers...........................................................37 4.1 Data Source and Methods.......................................................................................................37 4.2 Internal Chronology Statistics ...............................................................................................38 4.3 Comparison of Chronologies..................................................................................................40 4.4 Climate-Growth Response......................................................................................................41
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