Abstract
Distinct annual dust layers are preserved both in the tropical Quelccaya ice cap located in the Southern Andes of Peru as well as in the Guliya ice cap in the far Western Kunlun mountains of Tibet. The Tibetan Plateau and Bolivian-Peruvian altiplano have similar mean elevations (∼ 4000 metres) and their regional weather patterns are driven primarily by the sensible heat flux over these plateaus and latent heat release during precipitation. On average 70 to 80% of their annual snowfall arrives during their wet seasons, November to April on Quelccaya and April to August on Guliya.
This paper compares the 1500 year net accumulation (An) record from Quelccaya with the 2000 year net accumulation history from Guliya. This similarity between theses An histories is striking given that the sites are 20,000 km apart, lying on opposite sides of the Pacific Basin. During the overlapping 1500 years the major periods of drought and wetness appear contemporaneous, suggesting a teleconnection for higher-frequency climatic events such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Now, for the first time, a longer temporal perspective is available from ice core records and it suggests that lower-frequency teleconnections may exist as well.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Ageta Y and 7 others, (1989) Glaciological studies on Qingzang Plateau. Part 2: Glaciology and Geomorphology. Bulletin of Glacier Research, 9, 27–32
Barry RG, R Chorley (1992) Atmosphere, Weather and Climate New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc
Barnett TP, Dümenil L, Schlese U, Roeckner E (1988) The effect of Eurasian snow cover on global climate. Science, 239, 504–507
Dey B, Kathuria SN, Kumar OB (1985) Himalayan summer snow cover and withdrawal of the Indian summer monsoon. J. Clim. Appl. Meteor., 24, 865–868
Domrös M, Gongbing P (1988) The Climate of China. Springer-Verlag, New York, 361 p
Grootes PM, Stuiver M, White JWC, Johnsen S, Jouzel J 1993 Comparison of oxygen isotope records from the GISP2 and GRIP Greenland ice cores. Nature, 366 552– 554
Namais J (1963) Interactions of circulation and weather between hemispheres. Mon. Wea. Rev., 91, 482–486
Ramage CS (1971) Monsoon Meteorology. New York, Academic Press
Rasmusson EM, Carpenter TH (1983) The relationship between eastern equatorial Pacific Sea surface temperatures and rainfall over India and Sri Lanka. Mon. Wea. Rev., 111, 517–528
Shi Y, Wang J (1981) The fluctuations of climate, glaciers and sea level since late Pleistocene in China. Sea Level and Climatic Change (Proceedings of the Canberra Symposium, December, 1979) IAHS Publ. No. 131, 281–293
Thompson LG (1992) Ice core evidence from Peru and China. In Bradley, RS and PD Jones, eds. Climate Since AD 1500. Routledge, London, 517–548
Thompson LG, Mosley-Thompson E, Bolzan JF, Koci BR (1985) A 1500-year record of tropical precipitation in ice cores from the Quelyccaya ice cap, Peru. Science, 229, 971–973
Thompson LG, Mosley-Thompson E, Dansgaard W, Grootes PM (1986) The Little Ice Age as recorded in the stratigraphy of the tropical Quelccaya Ice Cap. Science, 234, 361–364
Thompson LG, Davis ME, Mosley-Thompson E, Liu K (1988) Pre-Incan agricultural activity recorded in dust layers in two tropical ice cores. Nature, 336, 763–765
Thompson LG and 9 others (1989) Holocene–Late Pleistocene climatic ice core records from Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau. Science, 246, 474–477
Thompson LG and 6 others (1993) Recent warming: ice core evidence from tropical ice cores with emphasis on central Asia. Global and Planetary Change, 7, 145–156
Wang PK, Zhang D (1992) Recent studies of the reconstruction of east Asian monsoon climate in the past using historical literature of China. J. Meteorol. Soc. of Japan, 70, 293–446
Zhang J, Crowley TJ (1989) Historical climate records in China and reconstruction of past climates. J. Clim., 2, 833–849
Zhang X (1981) The analysis of the index of dryness in the last 500 years in eastern China. Proceedings of the Conference on Fluctuations of the Climate, 1978, Science Press, Beijing (in Chinese), 46–51
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1996 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Thompson, L.G. (1996). Climatic Changes for the last 2000 Years Inferred from Ice-Core Evidence in Tropical Ice Cores. In: Jones, P.D., Bradley, R.S., Jouzel, J. (eds) Climatic Variations and Forcing Mechanisms of the Last 2000 Years. NATO ASI Series, vol 41. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-61113-1_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-61113-1_14
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-64700-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-61113-1
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive