Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
11012848 | Agricultural and Forest Meteorology | 2019 | 7 Pages |
Abstract
Forest growth at high altitudes and latitudes is sensitive to climate warming. However, warming-induced drought stress has decreased forest growth and survival rates, and constitutes a key uncertainty in projections of forest ecosystem dynamics. A fast warming rate has occurred over the Tibetan Plateau (TP), and the response pattern of alpine forest growth on the TP to a warmer and possibly drier climate is still unknown. By compiling tree-ring width records from ten alpine treeline ecotones (ATEs), we developed an index of regional tree growth in ATEs (RTGA) on the southeastern TP, which is a major forested region of the TP. Our results showed a stable and clear coherence between RTGA and the regional summer (June-August) minimum temperature during the studied period (1950-2012, R2â=â0.59, Pâ<â0.001), despite a prominent drying trend since the 1990s. We conclude that warming-induced drought stress has not limited ATE forest growth on the moist southeastern TP.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Earth and Planetary Sciences
Atmospheric Science
Authors
Chunming Shi, Miaogen Shen, Xiuchen Wu, Xiao Cheng, Xiaoyan Li, Tianyi Fan, Zongshan Li, Yuandong Zhang, Zexin Fan, Fangzhong Shi, Guocan Wu,