A less or more dusty future in the Northern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau?

Abstract

Dust plays an important role in climate changes as it can alter atmospheric circulation and global biogeochemical and hydrologic cycling. Many studies have investigated the relationship between dust and temperature in an attempt to predict whether global warming in coming decades to centuries can result in a less or more dusty future. However, dust and temperature changes have rarely been simultaneously reconstructed in the same record. Here we present a 1600-yr-long quantitative record of temperature and dust activity inferred simultaneously from varved Kusai Lake sediments in the northern Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau, NW China. At decadal time scale, our temperature reconstructions are generally in agreement with tree-ring records from Karakorum of Pakistan and temperature reconstructions of China and North Hemisphere based on compilations of proxy records. A less or more dusty future depends on temperature variations in the Northern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, i.e. weak and strong dust activities at centennial time scales are well correlated with low and high June–July–August temperature (average JJA temperature), respectively. This correlation means that stronger summer and winter monsoon should occur at the same times in the northern Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau.