Climate of the Past www.clim-past.net 1814-9324 1814-9332 6 4 2010 10.5194/cp-6-475-2010 http://www.clim-past.net/6/475/2010/ http://www.clim-past.net/6/475/2010/cp-6-475-2010.html http://www.clim-past.net/6/475/2010/cp-6-475-2010.pdf 475 481 2010-07-26 Characteristics of cold–warm variation in the Hetao region and its surrounding areas in China during the past 5000 years M.-Q. Li Q.-S. Ge geqs@igsnrr.ac.cn Z.-X. Hao J.-Y. Zheng S.-F. He Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China Using six long-term temperature proxy data series derived from different natural evidences, including pollens and lake-sediments, we reconstructed a temperature series with a 100-yr time resolution for the past 5000 yr in the Hetao region and its surrounding areas. The resulting series suggests that, on a millennial timescale, temperatures in the region were higher than the mean value of the whole series during the 5000~2600 years before present (yr BP) period, and became relatively low comparing with the average temperature of the whole series after 2600 yr BP. Within these two periods, temperature fluctuations comprising numerous short, multi-centennial intervals also existed. A comparison between our reconstructed series and other series in China and across the Northern Hemisphere indicate that, on a long-term scale, cold–warm variations had been in phase across the whole hemisphere during the past 5000 years; on the century to multi-century scale, the beginning and the ending times varied from region to region, thus implying that climate changes did not occur simultaneously in different regions. Axford, Y., Miller, G. 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