Climate change and its impact on ecosystems have become a hot spot. The Hengduan Mountains range in north-western Yunnan Province is well known for its high levels of biodiversity owing to the steep topographic gradients resulting from the Mekong, Yangtze, Salween and Irrawaddy rivers which cut deep, north-south oriented gorges in the mountainous landscape during their descent from the Tibetan plateau. However, the ecosystems are vulnerable to global warming and human disturbance and the biodiversity there is at risk. Studies on the historical climate change in the area are conducive to understand and predict the trend of regional evolution of ecological environment.
In cooperation with the Institute of Geography, University of Erlangen-Nurnberg, Germany, XTBG research Ph.D candidate Fan Zexin and Prof. Cao Kunfang achieved progress in the temperature reconstruction and drought reconstruction in the central Hengduan Mountains region.
Three academic papers have been accepted by international peer-reviewed journals.
(1) Ze—Xin Fan,Achim Bräuning,Bao Yang & Kun—Fang Cao. 2008. Tree ring density—based summer temperature reconstruction for the central Hengduan Mountains in southern China. Global and Planetary Change (in press,doi: 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2008.10.001)
(2) Ze—Xin Fan,Achim Bräuning & Kun—Fang Cao. 2008. Tree—ring based drought reconstruction in the central Hengduan Mountains region (China) since A.D. 1655. International Journal of Climatology (in press,doi: 10.1002/joc.1689)
(3) Ze—Xin Fan,Achim Bräuning & Kun—Fang Cao. 2008. Annual temperature reconstruction in the Central Hengduan Mountains,China,as deduced from tree rings. Dendrochronologia 26: 97—107. |