Contemporary climatic changes in the Predbaikalie region

The analysis of long-term changes of the major climate variables was conducted using a time series of observations from meteorological stations that had continuous observations from 65 up to 120years. The surface air temperature in the region is characterized by considerable temporal variability which is most apparent in the winter months and thus in the annual values. The positive regional trends of the surface air temperature vary from 0.2 to 0.6 °C per decade. On a century time scale, a tendency for a reduction of the annual precipitation totals prevails. However, the trend values are much lower than the interannual variability of precipitation. Analyzing the historical climatic conditions of the Baikal Region, we found that the occurrence of drought is possible in any month of the vegetation period, particularly in May, when the maximum numbers of dry years (33–64%), and the years with strong droughts (8–15%) were documented. The influence of climatic conditions on annual wood growth was studied using the response function technique. Results of this analysis show that in the Middle Priangarye region, the greatest impact upon the tree ring growth of pine reflects the mean April temperature, and in the Upper Priangarye region, annual atmospheric precipitation totals (for the hydrological year) control this growth.