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Variations in atmospheric dust loading since AD 1951 recorded in an ice core from the northern Tibetan Plateau

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2016

Wangbin Zhang ,
Shugui Hou ,
Wenling An ,
Liya Zhou  and
Hongxi Pang
Wangbin Zhang
Affiliation:
Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Coast and Island Development, School of Geographic and Oceanographic Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
Shugui Hou*
Affiliation:
Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Coast and Island Development, School of Geographic and Oceanographic Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
Wenling An
Affiliation:
Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Coast and Island Development, School of Geographic and Oceanographic Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
Liya Zhou
Affiliation:
Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Coast and Island Development, School of Geographic and Oceanographic Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
Hongxi Pang
Affiliation:
Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Coast and Island Development, School of Geographic and Oceanographic Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
*
Correspondence: Shugui Hou <shugui@nju.edu.cn>
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Abstract

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An ice core was extracted from the Zangser Kangri (ZK) ice field in the northern Tibetan Plateau (NTP), a location with limited instrumental and proxy records. In this paper, we present a continuous high–resolution dust concentration time series spanning the period AD 1951-2008 to investigate variations in atmospheric dust loading over the NTP. The results show that atmospheric dust loading exhibited significant decadal variations, with two periods of high dust loading (AD 1959–67 and AD 1979–89) and three periods of relatively low loading (AD 1951-58, AD 1968–78 and AD 1990–2008). The variability of atmospheric dust loading was related to wind speed at 500 hPa over the dust source regions. The winter Arctic Oscillation (AO) index showed a significant negative correlation with the annual dust concentration, implying a possible connection between the winter AO and the atmospheric dust loading over the NTP.

Keywords

ice core
Type
Paper
Information
Annals of Glaciology , Volume 57 , Issue 71 , March 2016 , pp. 258 - 264
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2016

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