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

Yu Liu (), Huiming Song (), Zhisheng An, Qiang Li, Steven W. Leavitt, Ulf Büntgen, Qiufang Cai, Ruoshi Liu, Congxi Fang, Changfeng Sun, Kerstin Treydte, Meng Ren, Lidong Mo, Yi Song, Wenju Cai, Quan Zhang, Weijian Zhou, Achim Bräuning, Jussi Grießinger, Deliang Chen, Hans W. Linderholm, Ashish Sinha, Hai Cheng, Lu Wang, Ying Lei, Junyan Sun, Wei Gong, Xuxiang Li, Linlin Cui, Liang Ning, Lingfeng Wan, Thomas W. Crowther and Constantin M. Zohner
Additional contact information
Yu Liu: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Huiming Song: Xi’an Jiaotong University
Zhisheng An: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Qiang Li: Xi’an Jiaotong University
Steven W. Leavitt: The University of Arizona
Ulf Büntgen: University of Cambridge
Qiufang Cai: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Ruoshi Liu: Xi’an Jiaotong University
Congxi Fang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Changfeng Sun: Xi’an Jiaotong University
Kerstin Treydte: Swiss Federal Research Institute (WSL)
Meng Ren: Xi’an Institute for Innovative Earth Environment Research
Lidong Mo: ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)
Yi Song: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Wenju Cai: CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere
Quan Zhang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Weijian Zhou: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Achim Bräuning: Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg
Jussi Grießinger: Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg
Deliang Chen: University of Gothenburg
Hans W. Linderholm: University of Gothenburg
Ashish Sinha: Dominguez Hills
Hai Cheng: Xi’an Jiaotong University
Lu Wang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Ying Lei: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Junyan Sun: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Wei Gong: Peking University
Xuxiang Li: Xi’an Jiaotong University
Linlin Cui: Chengdu University of Information Technology
Liang Ning: Nanjing Normal University
Lingfeng Wan: Ocean University of China
Thomas W. Crowther: ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)
Constantin M. Zohner: ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract 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 δ18O data on the Tibetan Plateau, representing one of the few multi-millennia-long annually-resolved terrestrial δ18O records to date. Our findings reveal that the 20th 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.

Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56687-z Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-56687-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-56687-z

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().