The 225-year precipitation variability inferred from tree-ring records in Shanxi Province, the North China, and its teleconnection with Indian summer monsoon

•High explained variance (51.9%) of the precipitation reconstruction•Detection of a persistent teleconnection between two Asian sub-monsoon systems•The NAO may play a role in such a teleconnection.

Understanding the interactions between the East Asian summer monsoon and Indian summer monsoon is a challenging task because of the insufficient proxy records. In this study, we reconstructed a 225-year precipitation record by combining ring widths of Pinus tabulaeformis and stable oxygen isotope ratios of Larix principis-rupprechtii using a multi-proxy dendroclimatology approach in the North China. The reconstructed record explained 51.9% of the variance in the observed precipitation during 1955–2003. The precipitation series could indicate the intensity of the East Asian summer monsoon. A spatial field analysis indicated that the series was strongly correlated with the reconstructed records of the surrounding area and a large part of the Indian subcontinent. The reconstructed records were significantly and positively correlated with All Indian Precipitation records (r = 0.32, n = 132, p < 0.001) and with a proxy of the Indian summer monsoon. These findings suggest that a persistent teleconnection exists between the reconstructed record and the Indian summer monsoon records from the past 225 years. The observed interannual synchronisation potentially resulted from the transport of partial water vapour from the Indian summer monsoon area to NC; however, this synchronisation could not be attributed to the El Nino-South Oscillation (ENSO). When considering an interdecadal time scale, the synchronisation with the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) has varied since 1779, implying that the NAO may serve as an additional atmospheric pattern that affects this teleconnection.