Abstract:
Central Asian drought has had drastic impacts on vast regions over recent
years. Longer records and insight into temporal drought patterns could aid
greatly in anticipating extreme events and agrarian planning. Mongolia is
representative of the central Asian region, and tree-ring resources are used
herein to extend the climate record and test for solar influence and/or
Pacific Ocean
... teleconnections. Absolutely dated tree-ring-width chronologies
from five sampling sites in west-central Mongolia were used in precipitation
models and an individual model was made using the longest of the five
tree-ring records (1340-2002). The tree-ring sites are in or near the Selenge
River basin, the largest river in Mongolia and a major input into Lake Baikal
in Siberia. Regression models resulted in a reconstruction of streamflow that
extends from 1637 to 1997 and explains 49% of the flow variation. Spectral
analysis indicated significant variation in the frequencies common to Pacific
Ocean variations [Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) and ENSO] and also some
quasi-solar and lunar-nodal periodicities similar to previous Mongolian
hydrometeorological reconstructions in eastern Mongolia based on tree rings. 
