A 368-year maximum temperature reconstruction based on tree-ring data in the northwestern Sichuan Plateau (NWSP), China

Abstract. We present a reconstruction of July–August mean maximum temperature variability based on a chronology of tree-ring widths over the period AD 1646–2013 in the northern part of the northwestern Sichuan Plateau (NWSP), China. A regression model explains 37.1 % of the variance of July–August mean maximum temperature during the calibration period from 1954 to 2012. Compared with nearby temperature reconstructions and gridded land surface temperature data, our temperature reconstruction had high spatial representativeness. Seven major cold periods were identified (1708–1711, 1765–1769, 1818–1821, 1824–1828, 1832–1836, 1839–1842, and 1869–1877), and three major warm periods occurred in 1655–1668, 1719–1730, and 1858–1859 from this reconstruction. The typical Little Ice Age climate can also be well represented in our reconstruction and clearly ended with climatic amelioration at the late of the 19th century. The 17th and 19th centuries were cold with more extreme cold years, while the 18th and 20th centuries were warm with less extreme cold years. Moreover, the 20th century rapid warming was not obvious in the NWSP mean maximum temperature reconstruction, which implied that mean maximum temperature might play an important and different role in global change as unique temperature indicators. Multi-taper method (MTM) spectral analysis revealed significant periodicities of 170-, 49–114-, 25–32-, 5.7-, 4.6–4.7-, 3.0–3.1-, 2.5-, and 2.1–2.3-year quasi-cycles at a 95 % confidence level in our reconstruction. Overall, the mean maximum temperature variability in the NWSP may be associated with global land–sea atmospheric circulation (e.g., ENSO, PDO, or AMO) as well as solar and volcanic forcing.