西北干旱区由于其特殊的地理位置和环境特征,是国内树轮气候学研究开展的最主要区域之一,该地区集中了我国大部分的树轮研究工作。干旱的气候条件不仅使该地区树木对气候变化响应敏感,同时也有利于老树的生长和古木的保存,为研究过去气候和环境变化提供了可靠的代用指标记录。通过总结分析西北干旱区已发表的树轮气候学研究成果,讨论了树轮气候学研究在该区域的空间分布特征,树轮长年表的研究进展以及树轮记录的西北干旱区温度和湿度变化特征等。研究结果表明,目前西北干旱区树轮气候学研究以树轮宽度指标为主。青藏高原东北部地区和新疆天山地区的树轮记录主要反映湿度变化,而新疆阿勒泰地区的树轮记录以响应温度变化为主。树轮记录的西北干旱区温度和湿度变化特征在青藏高原东北部地区和新疆地区存在一些异同,整体青藏高原东北部地区树轮记录的气候变化特征比较一致。
For its special geographical location and environment,the arid area of northwest China is one of the regions that most dendroclimatic studies are conducted and a lot of the tree ring related researches are published in this area.Tree growth in this area is sensitive to climate change and there are many old living trees and archaeological wood were preserved,which can provide the reliable proxy data for studying past climate and environment variation.In this paper,we discussed the spatial distribution of these dendroclimatic studies and the progress of building long tree ring chronologies and the characteristic of the tree ring recorded temperature and moisture variability in the northwest China based on the published dendroclimatic studies in this area.Our results indicate that most of the dendroclimatic studies were conducted using tree ring-width data.Tree-ring records from the northeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and Tienshan Mountains in Xinjiang are moisture sensitive,while the tree ring chronologies from Altay Mountainsin,Xinjiang are temperature sensitive.There are some differences and similarities between the tree-ring records from the northeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and Xinjiang.The most obvious characteristic is that the patterns in tree-ring chronologies from the northeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau are very consistent.