2009
  • Non-ICIMOD publication

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A 694-Year Tree-Ring Based Rainfall Reconstruction from Himachal Pradesh, India

  • Singh, J.
  • Wilmking, M.
  • Yadav, R. R.
  • Summary

We developed ring-width chronologies of Cedrus?deodara [(Roxb.) G. Don] and Pinus?gerardiana (Wall. Ex. Lamb) from a homogeneous moisture stressed area in Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh. Running correlation using a 50-year window with overlap of 25?years showed strong correlations between these species chronologies during the entire common period (ad 1310-2005). Response function analysis indicated that except for January-February, precipitation has a direct relationship with growth of these species. We therefore combined both the species chronologies to develop a statistically calibrated reconstruction of March-July precipitation that spans from ad 1310-2004, and explains 46% of the variance contained in the instrumental data from the calibration period 1951-1994. In the past 694?years of the reconstruction, the wettest period was in the twentieth century (1963-1992) and the driest in the eighteenth century (1773-1802). The relationships observed between reconstructed precipitation and Indian summer monsoon on interdecadal scale, SOI, PDO and NAO indicate the potential utility of such long-term reconstructions in understanding the large-scale climate variability. Multi-taper method (MTM) spectral analysis indicated significant (p?