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A 108.83-m Ice-Core Record of Atmospheric Dust Deposition at Mt. Qomolangma (Everest), Central Himalaya

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Jianzhong Xu ,
Shugui Hou ,
Dahe Qin ,
Susan Kaspari ,
Paul Andrew Mayewski ,
Jean Robert Petit ,
Barbara Delmonte ,
Shichang Kang ,
Jiawen Ren  and
Jerome Chappellaz
...Show all authors
Jianzhong Xu
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences (SKLCS), Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Lanzhou, China
Shugui Hou*
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences (SKLCS), Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Lanzhou, China MOE, Key Laboratory for Coast and Island Development, School of Geographic and Oceanographic Sciences (SGOS), Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China
Dahe Qin
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences (SKLCS), Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Lanzhou, China
Susan Kaspari
Affiliation:
Climate Change Institute (CCI) and Department of Earth Sciences, University of Maine, Orono ME 04469, USA
Paul Andrew Mayewski
Affiliation:
Climate Change Institute (CCI) and Department of Earth Sciences, University of Maine, Orono ME 04469, USA
Jean Robert Petit
Affiliation:
Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Géophysique de l'Environnement (LGGE), CNRS-Université Joseph Fourier, St Martin d'Hères, France
Barbara Delmonte
Affiliation:
Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Géophysique de l'Environnement (LGGE), CNRS-Université Joseph Fourier, St Martin d'Hères, France
Shichang Kang
Affiliation:
Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research (ITP), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, China
Jiawen Ren
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences (SKLCS), Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Lanzhou, China
Jerome Chappellaz
Affiliation:
Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Géophysique de l'Environnement (LGGE), CNRS-Université Joseph Fourier, St Martin d'Hères, France
Sungmin Hong
Affiliation:
Korea Polar Research Institute (KOPRI), Incheon 406-840, Korea
*
*Corresponding author. Fax: +86(931)8277094. E-mail address:shugui@lzb.ac.cn (S. Hou).
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Abstract

The central Himalaya can be regarded as an ideal site for developing a long-term ice core dust record to reflect the environmental signals from regional to semi-hemispheric scales. Here we present a dust record from segments of a 108.83-m ice core recovered from the East Rongbuk (ER) Glacier (27°59′N, 86°55′E; 6518 m a.s.l.) on the northeast slope of Mt. Qomolangma (Everest) in the central Himalaya, covering the period AD 600–1960. Due to rapidly layer thinning and coarse sampling, we primarily discuss the changes in the dust record since AD 1500 in this paper. Results show a significant positive relationship between the dust concentration and reconstructed air temperatures during this period, suggesting a likely cold–humid and warm–dry climatic pattern in the dust source regions, namely Central Asia. This is associated with the variability in the strength of the westerlies and its corresponding precipitation.

Keywords

DustIce coreQomolangma (Everest)Himalaya
Type
Original Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 73 , Issue 1 , January 2010 , pp. 33 - 38
Copyright
University of Washington

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