Tree-ring based PDSI reconstruction since AD 1842 in the Ortindag Sand Land, east Inner Mongolia

Based on three Chinese pine (Pinus tabulaeformis Carr.) and one Meyer spruce (Picea meyeri Rehd. et Wils.) ring-width chronologies, a 163-year drought history was reconstructed in the eastern Ortindag Sand Land. All tree-ring chronologies show large inter-annual variations and strong common signals and fairly consistent variation between different chronologies, indicating that they are excellent proxy of regional climate. A regional chronology (RC) was established by averaging the four standard chronologies and further employed for the analysis and climatic reconstruction. The analysis revealed that tree growth is primarily limited by low precipitation in February–March and June–July and high temperature in May–July. In addition, RC has high correlations with the monthly Palmer drought severity index (PDSI) prior to and during the growing season because the PDSI considers the accumulation of the droughts. Response function analysis revealed that RC only exhibits significant correlations with the PDSI in June and July (close to the 95% significance level in May). Because May–July is a critical period for tree growth, the average May–July PDSI (PDSI_5–7) was reconstructed back to 1842 using RC in the Ortindag Sand Land. The reconstruction can explain 52% of the PDSI variance and the equation was rather stable over time. It agrees well with the variation of the average dryness/wetness indices in North China, and captures the decline process of the East Asian summer monsoon since the mid-1960s. It is worth noting that the Ortindag Sand Land has experienced the most severe drought in the recent 40 years based on the 163-year drought reconstruction. Like summer precipitation in North China the reconstructed PDSI_5–7 also displays a 20-year oscillation. Supported by the International Foundation for Science (D/3681-1) (Sweden), the Humboldt Research Foundation (Germany) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 40471123)