In this study, A standard chronology(STD) of Abies fargesii was developed using tree rings in Shennongjia Mountain area(31°15'~31°75'N, 109°56'~110°58'E). Its reliable period is from 1808 A.D. to 2017 A.D.(subsample signal strength>0.85). To detect critical climatic factor for the tree growth in this region, we analysed the correlation between the STD and different climatic factors and found that correlation coefficients between STD chronology and monthly mean temperature were significant in many months, with the highest correlation(r=0.56) from previous autumn to current spring(P9C5). Based on these analyses, we reconstructed the P9C5 temperature variation in this region using a linear regression model. Further, to determine whether the STD-based reconstruction shows spatial-temporal representativeness over the large Eastern China region, spatial correlation analyses were performed. The results of the spatial analysis revealed that our reconstruction is representative of large-scale P9C5 temperature variation. Additionally, the reconstruction showed 4 warm periods and 4 cool periods over the past 210 years. It also showed that the temperature variation in the study area is corresponding to other nearby sites; these findings demonstrate the reliability of our reconstruction back in time. Additionally, Multi-taper analysis showed that significant spectral peaks were identified at 2~8 a, quasi-11 a, quasi-17 a, quasi-27 a and quansi-84 a, which indicate the possible links between El Niño-Southern Oscillations(ENSO), solar activity, Pacific Decadal Oscillation(PDO) and North Atlantic Oscillation(NAO) and regional temperature change. This hypothesis was further confirmed via the spatial correlation patterns of reconstructed series with Sea surface temperature(SST).
Zheng et al. (2021) studied this question.