Global Warming Detected by Tree Rings from Mongolia

In the year 2000 we culminated a successful five year investigation of climate change by completing a preliminary east-west transect across Mongolia. An earlier tree-ring study at Tarvagatay Pass, Mongolia indicated unusual warming during the 20th century similar to other paleo-investigations of the northern hemisphere. This record had represented one of the few tree-ring records for central Asia. New data from several sites in western Mongolia confirmed the preliminary temperature. The highest twenty-year growth period for the composite record is from 1973-1994. The western Mongolian record was significantly correlated with the Taimyr Peninsula and two northern hemisphere temperature reconstructions reflecting large-scale temperature patterns while showing some important regional differences. These differences should prove useful for climate models. We have also developed a millennial length temperature-sensitive record at the Solongotyin Davaa site (formerly Tarvagatay Pass) using relict wood and living trees. Conspicuous features over the last 1000 years are a century scale temperature decline punctuated by the end of the Little Ice Age in the late-1800s and 20th century warming. The record also shows a cold period early in the 12th century and warm intervals late in the 10th, early in the 15th and at end of the 18th centuries. Despite a limited sample size before 900 AD, the long Solongotyin Davaa record is useful in indicating severe cold events and suggests some cold intervals nearly as severe. These tree ring series, spanning much of the circumpolar northern treeline, have been compiled to create a long-term reconstruction of the Earth's temperature over centuries. The new chronology, in addition to its value as a detailed record of Mongolian climate, provides independent corroboration for such hemispheric and global reconstructions and their indications of unusual warming during the 20th century.