A Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index Reconstruction in the Taihe Mountains Using Tree-Ring Widths for the Last 283 Years

Tree-ring samples from Chinese Pine (Pinus tabulaeformis Carr.) that were collected in the Taihe Mountains on the western Loess Plateau, China, were used to analyze the effects of climate and drought on radial growth and to reconstruct the mean April-June Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) during the period 1730–2012 AD. Precipitation positively affected tree growth primarily during wet seasons, while temperature negatively affected tree growth during dry seasons. Tree growth responded positively to SPEI at long time scales most likely because the trees were able to withstand water deficits but lacked a rapid response to drought. The 10-month scale SPEI was chosen for further drought reconstruction. A calibration model for the period 1951–2011 explained 51% of the variance in the modeled SPEI data. Our SPEI reconstruction revealed long-term patterns of drought variability and captured some significant drought events, including the severe drought of 1928–1930 and the clear drying trend since the 1950s which were widespread across northern China. The reconstruction was also consistent with two other reconstructions on the western Loess Plateau at both interannual and decadal scales. The reconstructed SPEI series showed synchronous variations with the drought/wetness indices and spatial correlation analyses indicated that this reconstruction could be representative of large-scale SPEI variability in northern China. Period analysis discovered 128-year, 25-year, 2.62-year, 2.36-year, and 2.04-year cycles in this reconstruction. The time-dependency of the growth response to drought should be considered in further studies of the community dynamics. The SPEI reconstruction improves the sparse network of long-term climate records for an enhanced understanding of climatic variability on the western Loess Plateau, China.