Journal Article

Recent centennial drought on the Tibetan Plateau is outstanding within the past 3500 years

Sun, Changfeng, Sinha, Ashish, Crowther, Thomas W., Sun, Junyan, Ning, Liang, Ren, Meng, Bräuning, Achim, Fang, Congxi, Zhou, Weijian, Song, Yi, Leavitt, Steven W., Lei, Ying, Treydte, Kerstin, Chen, Deliang, Linderholm, Hans W., Büntgen, Ulf, Zohner, Constantin M., An, Zhisheng, Li, Xuxiang, Liu, Yu, Cai, Wenju, Cai, Qiufang, Wan, Lingfeng, Cui, Linlin, Cheng, Hai, Liu, Ruoshi, Grießinger, Jussi, Gong, Wei, Li, Qiang, Mo, Lidong, Song, Huiming, Wang, Lu, Zhang, Quan

2025

Overview

Given growing concerns about global climate change, it is critical to understand both historical and current shifts in the hydroclimate, particularly in regions critically entwined with global circulation. The Tibetan Plateau, the Earth’s largest and highest plateau, is a nexus for global atmospheric processes, significantly influencing East Asian hydroclimate dynamics through the synergy of the Asian Monsoon and the Westerlies. Yet, understanding historical and recent hydroclimate fluctuations and their wide-ranging ecological and societal consequences remains challenging due to short instrumental observations and partly ambiguous proxy reconstructions. Here, we present a precisely-dated 3476-year precipitation reconstruction derived from tree-ring δ 18 O data on the Tibetan Plateau, representing one of the few multi-millennia-long annually-resolved terrestrial δ 18 O records to date. Our findings reveal that the 20 th  century drought extremes are severe within the past three millennia, and likely linked to the weakening of both the Asian Monsoon and Westerlies due to anthropogenic aerosol emissions. Additionally, our analyses identified three distinct stages (110 BC–AD 280, AD 330–770 and AD 950–1300) characterized by shifts toward arid hydroclimate conditions, corresponding to significant social unrest and dynasty collapses, which underscores the potential societal impacts of severe hydroclimatic shifts. An annually resolved 3476-year tree-ring record from the Tibetan Plateau reveals severe 20 th  century droughts and highlights the interplay between the Asian Monsoon and Westerlies. Droughts are often linked to the collapse of dynasties.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group,Nature Portfolio
• Subject: 20th century / 704/106/242 / 704/106/694/2739 / Climate change / Drought / Earth and Related Environmental Sciences / Extreme drought / Geovetenskap och relaterad miljövetenskap / Global climate / Human influences / Humanities and Social Sciences / Hydroclimate / Monsoons / multidisciplinary / Science / Science (multidisciplinary) / Tree rings / Wind