CPD Climate of the Past Discussions CPD Clim. Past Discuss. 1814-9359 Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/cp-2021-2 Overcoming model instability in tree-ring-based temperature reconstructions using a multi-species method: A case study from the Changbai Mountains, northeastern China Zhu Liangjun https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0111-1450 1 2 Liu Shuguang 1 Zhu Haifeng https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9968-7284 3 Cooper David J. 4 Yuan Danyang 2 Zhu Yu 1 Li Zongshan https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0826-7271 5 Zhang Yuandong 6 Liang Hanxue 7 Zhang Xu 8 Song Wenqi 2 Wang Xiaochun https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8897-5077 2 National Engineering Laboratory for Applied Technology of Forestry & Ecology in South China, College of Life Science and Technology, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha 410004, China Center for Ecological Research and Key Laboratory of Sustainable Forest Ecosystem Management-Ministry of Education, School of Forestry, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin 150040, China Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100864, China Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Environment of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Research Institute of Forest Ecology, Environment and Protection, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing 100091, China Institute of Loess Plateau, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006, China College of Forestry, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China Hunan Provincial Science and Technology Department 2020RC2058 China Postdoctoral Science Foundation 2020M682600 Education Department of Hunan Province 20B627 Central South University of Forestry and Technology 2020YJ012 11 01 2021 2021 1 19 Copyright: © 2021 Liangjun Zhu et al. 2021 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This article is available from https://cp.copernicus.org/preprints/cp-2021-2/ The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://cp.copernicus.org/preprints/cp-2021-2/cp-2021-2.pdf

<p>The unstable sensitivity of growth-climate relationships greatly restricts tree-ring-based paleoclimate reconstructions, especially in areas with frequent <q>divergence</q> problems, such as the temperate zone in northeast China. Here, we propose an original tree-species mixing method to overcome this obstacle and improve the stability and reliability of reconstruction models. We take the tree-ring based growing-season minimum temperature reconstruction for the northern Changbai Mountains in northeast China as an example to illustrate the method. Compared with previous temperature reconstruction models, our reconstruction model is more stable and reliable and explains up to 68&thinsp;% of the variance. It is also highly consistent with historical records and tree-ring-based temperature reconstructions from the nearby Xiaoxing'an Mountains and from across the Northern Hemisphere. Our reconstruction uses two different tree species and is more accurate than temperature reconstructions developed from a single species. Over the past 259 years (AD 1757&ndash;2015), five significant cold periods and five warm periods were identified. The reconstruction indicates rapid warming since the 1980s, which is consistent with other instrumental and reconstructed records. We also found the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation plays a crucial role in driving the growing-season minimum temperature in the northern Changbai Mountains.</p>