Development of a High-Asia Tree-Ring Network for Reconstructing Past Climates

该奖项支持建立一个密集的精确年代的年轮年表网络，用于重建亚洲高地地区(即喀喇昆仑、喜马拉雅和青藏高原)过去300-500年的气候。这项研究的目标是更好地了解世界上这类信息相对较少的地区在年代际到数百年时间尺度上的气候变异性、强迫和影响。亚洲高地位于季风主导的南亚、干燥的青藏高原和亚洲内陆以北之间的地理分界线上。为了完成这个网络的开发，研究人员将利用与印度、中国和不丹的树木年轮科学家建立的合作，帮助扩展现有的树木年轮数据集，并开发新的树木年轮年表。这项研究有可能提供对地球上人口最稠密地区之一的气候变异性的更好理解。这项研究可能带来对亚洲高地和亚洲其他地区，特别是以季风为主的南亚地区未来气候变化的建模和预测的新见解。该项目还将对来自亚洲高地国家的合作的外国科学家进行树轮分析方法方面的培训。通过这种方式，研究人员正在与那些提供访问其天然森林资源和树木年轮数据的国家的科学家进行能力建设和技术转让。

This awards supports the development of a dense network of precisely dated annual tree-ring chronologies for use in reconstructing climate over the past 300-500 years in the High Asia region (i.e., Karakoram, Himalayas, and Tibetan Plateau).The goal of the research is to better understand climate variability, forcing, and impacts at inter-decadal to multi-centennial time scales in an area of the world where relatively little information of this kind is available. The High Asia region is strategically located along the orographic boundary between the monsoon-dominated southern Asia, the dry Tibetan Plateau, and the Asian interior to the north. To accomplish the development of this network, the researcher will utilize established collaborations with tree-ring scientists working in India, China, and Bhutan, to help expand existing tree-ring data sets and develop new tree-ring chronologies.The research has the potential to provide an improved understanding of climate variability in one of the most densely populated regions on Earth. The research may lead to new insights modeling and forecasting future climatic change over High Asia and other regions of Asia, especially those in monsoon-dominated South Asia. This project will also train collaborating foreign scientists from High Asia countries in the methods of tree-ring analysis. In this way, the researcher is enabling capacity building and technology transfer with scientists from those countries that are offering access to their natural forest resources and tree-ring data.