Positive covariance between temperature and precipitation affects dendroclimatological reconstructions

Gao, Linlin, Bebchuk, Tatiana, Oppenheimer, Clive, Osborn, Timothy, Esper, Jan, Trnka, Mirek, Gou, Xiaohua, Deng, Yang and Büntgen, Ulf (2026) Positive covariance between temperature and precipitation affects dendroclimatological reconstructions. Global and Planetary Change, 263. ISSN 0921-8181 (In Press)

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Abstract

Living and relict Qilian juniper (Juniperus przewalskii Kom.) trees from the northeastern Tibetan Plateau offer an exceptional high-resolution paleoclimate archive spanning centuries to millennia. However, the co-occurrence of different climate signals exhibited by the same trees and chronologies may challenge the interpretation, and even reliability, of dendroclimatological reconstructions. Here, we analyse temperature and precipitation measurements from 60 meteorological stations northeast of the Tibetan Plateau between 1139 and 3663 m asl. We find that summer temperature and precipitation are positively correlated at higher elevations, while they tend to reveal inverse relationships at lower elevations. We also show that anthropogenic warming has led to wetter conditions at higher elevations but drier conditions at lower elevations. Our results further suggest that tree ring-based hydroclimate reconstructions from semi-arid Asian mountain systems are localised representations, which are usually not captured by gridded climate data.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Data availability: All data used in this study are either freely available (https://data.cma.cn/ and https://climexp.knmi.nl) or included in the online supplement.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	anthropogenic warming,asian water towers,climate change,dendrochronology,high mountains,paleoclimate,proxy reconstructions,qilian juniper,tibetan plateau,tree rings,oceanography,global and planetary change,sdg 13 - climate action ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1900/1910
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Water Security Research Centre Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Climatic Research Unit
Related URLs:	https://www.scopus.com/pages/publication...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	12 May 2026 09:04
Last Modified:	14 May 2026 15:16
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/102952
DOI:	10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105496

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