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The twentieth century was the wettest period in northern Pakistan over the past millennium
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Journal Article
The twentieth century was the wettest period in northern Pakistan over the past millennium
2006
Overview
A long rain
A warming climate could significantly alter the global rate and distribution of rainfall, and arguably it is changing rainfall, rather than temperature, that would have the greater direct impact on human well-being and on ecosystems. An annually resolved oxygen isotope record from tree-rings has been used to produce a millennial-scale reconstruction of precipitation variability in the mountains of northern Pakistan. The data reveal an increase in precipitation during the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, producing the wettest conditions seen in the past thousand years. A comparison with other climate reconstructions points to large-scale intensification of the hydrological cycle coincident with the onset of industrialization and global warming. Its unprecedented amplitude argues for a human contribution to the change.
Long-term precipitation reconstructions indicate a large-scale intensification of the hydrological cycle coincident with the onset of industrialization and global warming — such unprecedented amplitude argues for a human role.
Twentieth-century warming could lead to increases in the moisture-holding capacity of the atmosphere, altering the hydrological cycle and the characteristics of precipitation
1
. Such changes in the global rate and distribution of precipitation may have a greater direct effect on human well-being and ecosystem dynamics than changes in temperature itself
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,
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. Despite the co-variability of both of these climate variables
3
, attention in long-term climate reconstruction has mainly concentrated on temperature changes
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,
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,
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,
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,
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. Here we present an annually resolved oxygen isotope record from tree-rings, providing a millennial-scale reconstruction of precipitation variability in the high mountains of northern Pakistan. The climatic signal originates mainly from winter precipitation, and is robust over ecologically different sites. Centennial-scale variations reveal dry conditions at the beginning of the past millennium and through the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, with precipitation increasing during the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries to yield the wettest conditions of the past 1,000 years. Comparison with other long-term precipitation reconstructions indicates a large-scale intensification of the hydrological cycle coincident with the onset of industrialization and global warming, and the unprecedented amplitude argues for a human role.
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing,Nature Publishing Group
Subject
