Tree-ring based reconstruction of drought variability (1615–2009) in the Kongtong Mountain area, northern China

The Kongtong Mountain area is a marginal area of the Asian summer monsoon and is sensitive to monsoon dynamics. The sensitivity highlights the need to establishing long-term climate records there and evaluating links with the Asian monsoon. Using “signal-free” methods, we developed a tree-ring chronology based 52 ring-width series from 23 Pinus tabulaeformis and Pinus armandidi trees in the Kongtong Mountain, northern China. Tree growth is highly correlated (0.844) with the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) from May to July, demonstrating the strength of PDSI in modeling drought conditions in this region. We therefore developed a robust May-July PDSI reconstruction spanning 1615–2009, which explained 71.2% of the instrumental variance for the period 1951–2005. Extremely dry epochs are found in periods of 1723–1727 and 1928–1932, and significant wet conditions are seen from 1696 to 1700, 1753 to 1757 and 1963 to 1969. These persistent dry and wet epochs were also found in northeastern Mongolia, suggesting similar drought regimes between these two regions. The dryness that occurred in the 1920s–1930s was the most severe and was concurrent with a warming period. This warming/drying relationship of the 1920s–1930s may be an analog to the current drying trend in northern China. ► Conduct the tree-ring based PDSI reconstruction (71.2%) in north central China. ► The signal-free method is proved to be useful in this reconstruction. ► Temperature-induced droughts determine tree growth. ► The drought in 1723–27 and 1928–32 is most severe in this region.