Upper Irtysh River Flow Since AD 1500 As Reconstructed by Tree Rings, Reveals the Hydroclimatic Signal of Inner Asia
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Climatic Change DOI 10.1007/s10584-016-1814-y Upper Irtysh River flow since AD 1500 as reconstructed by tree rings, reveals the hydroclimatic signal of inner Asia Feng Chen1 & Yujiang Yuan1 & Nicole Davi2,3 & Tongwen Zhang1 Received: 30 March 2016 /Accepted: 18 September 2016 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016 Abstract In a warming world, water scarcity is one of the main concerns for sustainable development and human well-being in inner Asia. Due to the lack of instrumental streamflow records, the natural variability of the water supply from inner Asian rivers is not well understood from a long-term perspective. Here, we have reconstructed the streamflow of Upper Irtysh River from AD 1500 to 2010, based on the tree-ring width indices of spruce (Picea obovata)andlarch(Larix sibirica) from the Altay Mountains. The reconstruction explains 48.4 % of the recorded streamflow variance over the common period 1958–2008. This streamflow reconstruction is representative of regional moisture conditions over the Irtysh River basin area. Some significant spectral peaks are identified, and suggest the influence of natural forcing on the streamflow of the Upper Irtysh River, such as ENSO and solar activity. The linkages of our reconstruction with sea surface temperature in the northern Indian Ocean, eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, and equatorial Atlantic Ocean suggest the connection of regional streamflow variations to large-scale atmospheric circulation. We also find that there is the relationship between regional drought/streamflow variations in inner Asia and the interac- tion of the mid-latitude Westerlies and Asian summer monsoon. Our 511-year streamflow reconstruction provides a long-term perspective on current and twentieth century wet and dry events in the Irtysh River basin, is useful to guide predictions of future variability, and aids future water resource management. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10584-016-1814-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Feng Chen [email protected] 1 Key Laboratory of Tree-ring Physical and Chemic Research of China Meteorological Administration/ Key Laboratory of Tree-ring Ecology of Uigur Autonomous Region, China Meteorological Administration, No 46 Jianguo Road, Urumqi, China 2 Department of Environmental Science, William Paterson University, Wayne, NJ, USA 3 Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, NY, USA Climatic Change Keywords Irtysh River. Tree rings . Streamflow reconstruction . Sea surface temperature . Atmospheric circulation 1 Introduction Global warming is exacerbating immediate and negative effects on the hydroclimatic variations and ecosystems of Asia, and it is threatening the livelihood of billions of people (Cook et al. 2010;Dai2011; Huang et al. 2015a). The accelerated pace of glacier retreats in the high altitude mountain areas of inner Asia with global warming raises concerns about the sustained supply of fresh water to meet increasing water consumption (Yao et al. 2004; Niederer et al. 2008; Oberhänsli et al. 2011; Siegfried et al. 2012;KulkarniandKaryakarte2014). Since many international rivers of China provide fresh water for adjacent countries of central and south Asia, fluctuations in China’s climate, glacier and streamflow can have wide-ranging geopolitical consequences. However, hydroclimatical records that provide information on hydroclimatical variability are short for China (eg. Perhaps just give an estimate of years here) , especially in river basins that cross political boundaries, such as Irtysh, Ili, Brahmaputra and Mekong Rivers. Extended hydroclimatical records for international rivers basin are thus critically important for evaluating the variability of water resource and developing suitable water resource management policies for China and neighboring countries. Tree rings play an important role in our understanding of past hydroclimatical variability in Asia. An important development is the reconstruction of the hydroclimate in Monsoonal Asia, the so-called Monsoon Asia Drought Atlas (MADA) developed by Cook et al. (2010). Careful and prudent water resource management requires detailed and reliable knowledge about streamflow variations on annual to centennial time-scales, in addition to standardized values of PDSI. Several tree-ring chronologies also have been developed from inner Asia in recent decades that capture long-term streamflow variation (Davi et al. 2006, 2013;Yangetal.2012; Gou et al. 2010;Cooketal.2013;Pedersonetal.2013a, b). These streamflow reconstructions make it possible to describe the long-term streamflow history across inner Asia that was not possible using the recorded data alone, however, for the huge area of inner Asia, the number of tree-ring based streamflow reconstructions is low and international rivers basin in China have yet to be developed. The Irtysh River is one of the main international rivers in China and it drains an extensive area from 47° N to 61° N (Fig. 1). From its origins as the Black Irtysh in the Altay Mountains in Xinjiang, China, the Irtysh flows northwest through Lake Zaysan in Kazakhstan, where it meets the Ishim and Tobol rivers before merging with the Ob River near Khanty-Mansiysk in western Siberia, after 4, 248 km. The Ob-Irtysh River makes up the seventh largest river in the world, and is the only international river in China flowing into the Arctic Ocean. Reservoirs and the Irtysh–Karamay–Ürümqi canal have made extensive irrigated agriculture possible in the arid region of north Xinjiang, and have provided an improved water supply to more than 4 million people (Tan and Feng 2003). The Upper Irtysh River Basin has a continuous gauging station record beginning in January 1958, however, streamflow has not been reconstructed to date. In this study we develop a tree-ring based streamflow reconstruction for the Upper Irtysh River Basin. We analyze the temporal variations in the streamflow and put recent streamflow variations and trends in the context of the past six centuries. To facilitate the use of the reconstruction for water resource management, we also analyze the frequency, intensity, and Climatic Change Fig. 1 Map of the sample sites, weather stations, and hydrological station (Kuwei) in the study area duration of drought and pluvial events and compare the reconstructed values to those observed during the instrumental period. Finally, to identify the major climatic forcings influencing streamflow, we compare the Irtysh River reconstruction with atmospheric circulation. 2Dataandmethods 2.1 Geographical settings The headwater area of the Irtysh River is located in the Altay Mountains in China. In this region trees were sampled between 1130 and 2145 m a.s.l., mountain peaks are up to 4374 m a.s.l. and small alpine glaciers can be found at high elevation. The mean annual precipitation from the Fuyun meteorological station (46°59′N, 89°31′E, 826.6 m a.s.l.) during the period 1962–2010 is 189.7 mm and the mean annual temperature for the same period is 3.0 °C. Snowfall usually lasts 6 months from October to March (Fig. 2a). July is the hottest month (average temperature 22.2 °C) while January is the coldest month (average temperature − 20.5 °C). This area is one of the coldest places in China during the winter. The mean annual streamflow from the Kuwei hydrological station (47°20′N, 89°41′E, 1200 m a.s.l.) in the Upper Irtysh River Basin is 307.1 m3/s during the period 1958–2008. The seasonal distributions of precipitation and streamflow differ somewhat, but both increase rapidly from April to June (Fig. 2b). However, there is only one peak (in June) in the monthly distribution of streamflow, while there are two peaks (in July and November) in precipitation. The streamflow peak is directly related to the meltwater input from snowpack in the higher elevations of the watershed during the warm season. Both temperature and precipitation showed the significant upward trends (Fig. 2c), and no significant upward trends was found in the annual streamflow (Fig. 2d). The dominant vegetation type in low altitude areas of the Altay Mountains is semi-arid grassland with scattered tree cover. The tree species used in our study is spruce (Picea obovata) Climatic Change Fig. 2 a Monthly total precipitation and monthly mean temperature at the Fuyun meteorological station. b Monthly streamflow data at Kuwei hydrological station and monthly total precipitation at the Fuyun meteoro- logical station. c Comparison between observed annual precipitation and temperature from 1962 to 2010. d Observed annual streamflow from 1957 to 2008 and larch (Larix sibirica). They typically occupy the low altitude areas of the Altay Mountains and grow on thin, rocky soil with limited water-holding capacity. Shrubs, grasses, and herbs are scattered in the understory of the forests. 2.2 Tree-ring network Spruce (Picea obovata) trees were sampled at seven sites (QBL, TLD, XSK, SEE, XTK, KYS and DEN) in the western slope of the Altay Mountains for the analyses performed herein (Fig. 1). At least two increment cores were taken from each living tree that was sampled, and cores or sections were taken from available dead wood. All sampling was performed in open stands growing on shallow or rocky soils. In total, these seven spruce sites provide 356 samples taken from 189 trees. Additional tree-ring width data from larch trees from three sites on the eastern slope of the Altay Mountains (Mongolia) were obtained from the National Climatic Data Center (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/): Ankhny Khoton (AK), Khovd Golgi (KG), and Khoton Nuur (KN) (Davi et al. 2009). This tree-ring network covered most of the headwater area of the Irtysh River. Site information, including latitude and longitude, slope and cores/trees is listed in Table 1. The cores were mounted and prepared following standard procedures (Stokes and Smiley, 1968). Annual ring widths were measured to a precision of 0.001 mm with a TA Unislide Measurement System (Velmex Inc., Bloomfield, New York).