Warmth Favored Dust Activities on the Northeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Abstract

The limited availability of long-term historical dust records has impeded comprehension of the mid-latitude atmospheric circulation and underlying mechanisms of dust activities in arid Central Asia. We present a well-dated 2,800-year peat record from the northeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and identified the aeolian origin of archived particles by comparing grain-size distribution and strontium isotope with those of modern dusts. We show that the reconstructed dust input was enhanced during warming periods, which also coincides with the variation of Westerlies, total solar irradiance, and North Atlantic Oscillation. We propose that warming climate may have contributed to a significant impact on the moisture balance and wind strength, and predict that this region may experience more frequent dust activity in the future. These findings contrast with meteorological observations of decreasing dust activities during the last 40 years despite a warming trend, suggesting different effects of natural processes versus anthropogenic impact on global warming.