Yu Li

• Ph.D.
• Professor (Full) at Lanzhou University

Drylands are characterized by limited water resources, fragile ecosystems, and a heightened vulnerability to climate change. Various surface elements in drylands are closely related and studying their long‐term coupling processes and mechanisms is beneficial for managing global warming impacts on drylands. This article reports on a new aeolian sedi...

Lake inorganic carbon burial in global closed basins has been recognized as a significant component of the terrestrial carbon cycle. However, the controlling factors governing its long-term dynamics and its future trajectory remain insufficiently understood. Here, we present a comprehensive dataset encompassing lake inorganic and organic carbon bur...

The East Asian monsoon region with the summer precipitation regime and the Mediterranean climate region with the winter precipitation regime show opposite dry/wet changes since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Therefore, different precipitation regimes bring about the opposing changes in dry/wet states between eastern and central Asia (EA and CA). B...

Closed basin accounts for about one‐fifth of the global land area and is an important part of the global terrestrial carbon cycle. Due to its relatively close geographical environment and independent carbon cycling system, it is an ideal place to study regional carbon cycling. Here we present a carbon‐related proxy dataset for the Shiyang River Bas...

青藏高原北缘是季风西风协同影响的敏感区. 夏季, 水汽输送可以到达青海湖和祁连山东段; 冬季, 气候主要受控于西风. 本文从古气候视角, 对比了该区域中全新世暖期、中世纪暖期、现代暖期和未来百年暖期的干湿变化, 发现中全新世暖期主要受轨道控制的东亚夏季风影响, 区域整体表现出温暖湿润的气候特征; 中世纪暖期主要受控于太阳辐射, 存在暖干的现象; 现代暖期和未来百年暖期主要由温室气体增加导致的温度升高控制, 气候干旱化趋势显著. 青藏高原北缘现代暖期和未来百年暖期的干湿格局与中世纪暖期类似, 而持续升温会导致西风带扩张, 气候逐渐湿润, 未来干湿变化将与中全新世暖期更加相似.

The northern Tibetan Plateau is a climatically sensitive zone influenced by monsoon and westerly winds. In summer, water vapor transport can reach Qinghai Lake and the eastern section of the Qilian Mountains; in winter, westerly winds mainly control the climate. This article compares the wet/dry changes in the region during the mid-Holocene (MH) wa...

Endorheic river basins and their terminal lakes are highly sensitive to climate change and human activities. Based on chemical and pollen indicators, lake level, and erosion/accumulation rates of rivers, we explore the phasing of the evolution of the river system in the Hexi Corridor during the Holocene. The results suggest that climate change domi...

The evasion of carbon dioxide (CO2) from lakes significantly influences the global carbon equilibrium. Amidst global climatic transformations, the role of Qingzang Plateau (QZP) lakes as carbon (C) sources or sinks remains a subject of debate. Furthermore, accurately quantifying their contribution to the global carbon budget presents a formidable c...

Dust aerosols significantly affect the Earth’s climate, not only as a source of radiation, but also as ice nuclei, cloud condensation nuclei and thus affect CO 2 exchange between the atmosphere and the ocean. However, there are large deviations in dust model simulations due to limited observations on a global scale. Based on ten initial Climate Mod...

Based on the data from China's second soil census and the organic carbon data of 51 lakes, the organic carbon sedimentary models of lakes and soils were analyzed by dividing China into inflow areas and outflow areas. The results showed that there were different organic carbon deposition patterns in the inner and outer flow areas of China. The buria...

The Hexi Corridor of China is a crucial area where eastern and western civilizations met, due to its location in the eastern section of the ancient Silk Road. The historical records dataset on human activity in the Hexi Corridor of China (from Neolithic to Qing dynasty) was developed based on historical documents and georeferenced. It is a comprehe...

The global monsoon region with the summer precipitation regime and the Mediterranean climate region with the winter precipitation regime showed opposite dry/wet evolution since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). The remarkable difference in summer precipitation regime and winter precipitation regime reveal the seasonal signals of precipitation in mult...

Precipitation can shape our climate both in the present and the future. Even though we have made significant advances in studying the mechanisms of millennial-scale climate changes through high-resolution records, we still cannot quantitatively characterize the global spatiotemporal precipitation variations within the Holocene. Therefore, we develo...

Surface sediment proxies indicate modern environmental elements and thus infer paleoenvironmental evolution, but few assessment have been reported on the effect of intensive human activity on sediments, and whether this affects the indication of the climate of the area by surface sediment proxies. In this study, 456 surface sediments from the Qilia...

444 surface sediment samples were collected in the Qilian Mountains and the surrounding areas , and the spatial distribution characteristics of the surface sediment magnetic susceptibility were analyzed. Combined with the research results on the formation sediment magnetic susceptibility in the Qilian Mountains and surrounding areas, the indicative...

Spatial-temporal scales effects are general among human-nature interactions. However, the laws and mechanisms of the interaction between humans and the environment at different spatial-temporal scales remain to be identified. The Hexi Corridor in Northwest China is located in the eastern section of the Silk Road and is one of the world's first long...

The interpretation and understanding of the relationship between Middle to Late Holocene climate change in monsoon margins of northwest China with the westerlies and Asian monsoon (AM) remain controversial. Here we present a new multi-proxy sedimentary dataset from the Heihe River basin in the middle part of the Hexi Corridor on the northern margin...

The Qilian Mountains, located in the northeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, is a sensitive zone of both East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) and westerly winds (WW). The evolution history and driving mechanism of the ecosystem and hydrologic cycle in this region on long-term timescales have not yet been clarified. In this study, we comprehensively study t...

The process and mechanism of coupling between human activities and Holocene environmental change has become a research hotspot in the field of earth sciences. Lake sediments store rich environmental information, which can help to reconstruct past climate changes. Up to now, most of the studies on the palaeoenvironmental proxies indicating human act...

14 个终端湖泊的岩性、 年代和古环境代用指标数据， 重建了 该区域全新世以来的气候变化， 探索了全新世以来气候变化与人类活动的耦合关系。初步结 果如下： 全新世以来祁连山及周边地区终端湖泊中有机质多为水生和陆生植物混合来源； 祁连 山地区早中全新世气候温暖湿润， 晚全新世以来气候干旱化明显； 古环境代用指标变化与沉积 相变化密切相关， 不同沉积相对应的代用指标指示意义差异较大， 2.0 cal ka BP 以来湖泊沉积 相的变化开始受到人类活动影响， 距今 200 a 左右开始， 人类活动对区域环境变化起主导作用。 关键词：祁连山； 内流区； 湖泊沉积相； 古环境代用指标； 人类活动

Located in the eastern section of the ancient Silk Road, the Hexi Corridor is a crucial area where eastern and western civilizations met. Previous studies mainly explore human-nature interactions at a particular period, and there is a lack of phased human-nature interaction studies at long time scales. Here we present the relationships and patterns...

The links between ancient civilizations and climate (wet or arid) are variable and difficult to prove, particularly in areas that are sensitive to climate change and home to abundant human activities. The complex climatic conditions and rich history of the Shiyang River Basin make it an ideal area for studying the relationship between past environm...

We present the first gridded and temporally continuous quantitative pollen-based plant-cover reconstruction for temperate and northern subtropical China over the Holocene (11.7 ka to present) obtained by applying the Regional Estimates of VEgetation Abundance from Large Sites (REVEALS) model. The objective is to provide a dataset of pollen-based la...

The Asian summer monsoon (ASM), controlled by tropical ocean‐atmosphere systems, and the westerlies, directly linked to high‐latitude climates, interact in mid‐latitude East Asia. Located at a climate junction, the northeastern Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau (QTP) is a sensitive zone for the interaction of the westerlies and ASM. In the current work, we p...

Aeolian landscapes dominate the semiarid dune fields across the Asian summer monsoonal boundary (ASMB) of northern China, where the widespread palaeosols are usually regarded as indicators of enhanced monsoonal precipitation (moisture) during the Late Quaternary. However, the processes of palaeosol development, and their response to climate change,...

Global paleomonsoon precipitation evolution is confined to asynchronous responses to global monsoons to shared forcings, including summer insolation, sea surface temperature, atmospheric circulation coupling, and ocean circulation. However, most studies are based on conclusions drawn from single or a few discrete records or deduced from top-down cl...

We present the first gridded and temporally continuous quantitative pollen-based plant-cover reconstruction for temperate and northern sub-tropical China over the Holocene (11.7 ka BP to present) using the Regional Estimates of Vegetation Abundance from Large Sites (REVEALS) model. The objective is to provide a dataset of pollen-based land cover fo...

Due to global warming, dry-wet condition of the Qilian Mountains has experienced significant change in recent decades. Thus, predicting future climate change is critical for studies on the environmental evolution. To explore the climate trends under increasing temperature, we took the millennial-scale Middle Holocene Warm Period and the centennial-...

Mostly concurring with arid and semi-arid regions, closed basins are faced with water scarcity, prominent imbalance between water resource supply and demand, and ecological degradation. Spatial-temporal patterns of water resource change in closed basins have received increasing attention in recent years, but it is still unclear whether there is a c...

Much dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) may exist in lacustrine carbonates in the terminal lakes of closed basins in arid areas, and inorganic carbon sinks in arid regions are an important hypothesis of global carbon cycle research in recent years. Previous studies have made significant progress in estimating the inorganic carbon content. However, th...

The westerly winds and East Asian summer monsoon play a leading role in climate change of southwestern North America and eastern Asia since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), respectively. Their convergence in arid and semi-arid regions of the Asian continent (AAC) makes the regional climate change more complicated on the millennial-scale. There are s...

Water shortage has plagued the social development and human well-being of global closed basins. However, the hydroclimate research on different time scales in these regions remains inadequate at a global scale. In this paper, the hydrological responses from global closed basins to millennial-scale and centennial-scale cold/warm events since the Las...

Previous studies argued that climate change modes from East and Central Asia (EA and CA) are out of phase at multi-time scales. However, in recent years, dry/wet changes in CA which contradict traditional views have provoked further discussion. The synchronization of rain and heat periods is a common climate phenomenon in most regions of East and C...

Investigating the response mechanisms of long‐term global wet/dry pattern changes to cold/warm periods and climate forcings can provide scientific supports for the projection of future wet/dry patterns in the context of global warming. Here we present a systematic assessment into the response of global wet/dry patterns to cold/warm periods since th...

Background Closed basins occupy 21% of the world’s land area and can substantially affect global carbon budgets. Conventional understanding suggests that the terminal areas of closed basins collect water and carbon from throughout the entire basin, and changes in lake organic carbon sinks are indicative of basin-wide organic carbon storages. Howeve...

The production, transport, and deposition of dust has profound impacts and feedbacks on the regional and global environments. In parallel, the Tibet Plateau (TP) plays an important role in East Asian and global climate systems. Previous studies have shown that the dust can reach the plateau by long-distance transport from the westerlies and by shor...

Global closed basins, occupying almost one fifth of the world's land area, spatially coincide with arid and semiarid areas. Paleoclimatic proxies can indicate basin-wide environmental change and human activity. However, previous studies have not approached the use of proxies in the same way to reconstruct natural and anthropogenic processes at regi...

Climate change modes between East Asia and southwestern North America are interlinked; however, little research has been done in comparing the underlying mechanisms between time scales. Here we present a comprehensive study using modern observations, paleoclimate records, and PMIP3/CMIP5 simulations to investigate the multi-timescale wet/dry change...

The monsoon system and westerly circulation, to which climate change responds differently, are two important components of global atmospheric circulation interacting with each other in the middle to low latitudes. Relevant research on global millennial-scale climate change in monsoon and westerly regions is mostly devoted to multi-proxy analyses of...

Climate change from the northern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) is affected by the combined effects of the Asian summer monsoon and the westerlies. However, changes in monsoon vapor transport and the westerly jet stream, as well as their effect to climate change mode there, are not clear at different time scales. Here we present composite research usi...

Closed basins, mainly located in subtropical and temperate drylands, have experienced alarming declines in water storage in recent years. An assessment of long-term hydroclimate change in those regions remains unquantified at a global scale as of yet. By integrating lake records, PMIP3–CMIP5 simulations and modern observations, we assess the wet–dr...

The ocean plays a crucial role in the global and regional climate. Many regional monsoon climates are inter-linked by ocean currents and sea surface temperature (SST). The climate link between the East Asian and North American continent has been proposed and verified by many studies. A widely accepted hypothesis is that the precipitation of the mon...

Abstract. Monsoon system and westerly circulation, to which climate change responds differently, are two important components of global atmospheric circulation, interacting with each other in the mid-to-low latitudes and having synergy effect to those regions. Relevant researches on global millennial-scale climate change in monsoon and westerlies r...

The fluctuation of a single lake level is a comprehensive reflection of water balance within the basin, while the regional consistent fluctuations of lake level can indicate the change of regional effective moisture. Previous researches were mainly focused on reconstructing effective moisture by multiproxy analyses of lake sediments. We carried out...

Abstract. Closed basins, mainly located in subtropic and temperate drylands, have experienced alarming decline in water storage in recent years. However, a long-term assessment of hydroclimate changes in the region remains unquantified at a global scale. By intergrating the lake records, PMIP3/CMIP5 simulations and modern observations, we assess th...

In an attempt to quantify Holocene anthropogenic land-cover change in temperate China, we 1) applied the REVEALS model to estimate plant-cover change using 94 pollen records and relative pollen productivity for 27 plant taxa, 2) reviewed earlier interpretation of pollen studies in terms of climate- and human-induced vegetation change, and 3) review...

The East Asian monsoon exerts a profound influence on environmental change in the East Asian region. Various factors have been hypothesized as the dominant Asian monsoon forcings, however, the forcings can change from interannual to millennial timescales. The linkages between monsoon forcings at different timescales remain unclear. To better unders...

Hydrological circulation, as the most basic material cycle and active natural phenomenon on earth, exerts a significant influence on climate change. The mid-Holocene is an important period to better understand modern environmental change; however, little research has focused on its quantitative simulation of paleo-hydrological process. In this rese...

Studying past climate change has important scientific significance in exploring long-term climatic variability, assessing the nature and human’s contribution to climate warming, and predicting future climate change. Here, we presented a data synthesis of pollen records, organic geochemical proxies, as well as lake-level records, along with numerica...

China is the country with the most population in the world, and its climate is extremely diverse due to tremendous differences in latitude, longitude, and altitude, ranging from tropical in the far south to subarctic in the far north and alpine in the higher elevations of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Accurate assessment of its modern climate change...

Marine oxygen isotope stage 5a (MIS 5a), MIS 3a, and Holocene were highlighted periods in paleoclimate studies. Many scientists have published a great number of studies in this regard, but they paid more attention to qualitative research, and there was often a lack of quantitative data. In this paper, based on chronological evidence from a paleolak...

With a view to the local geographical environment and terrain factors, the relationship between debris flow distribution and topographic factors in Lanzhou were quantitatively analyzed, using documents , meteorological data, physical geographic data, digital elevation models, GIS technology as well as the Logistic model. The results showed that, du...

Arid and semi-arid ecosystems are increasingly recognized as important carbon storage sites. In these regions, extensive sequestration of dissolved inorganic carbon can occur in the terminal lakes of endorheic basins—basins that do not drain to external bodies of water. However, the global magnitude of this dissolved inorganic carbon sink is uncert...

Atmospheric particulate matter (PM 2.5 and PM 10) can adversely affect human health and also has impacts on climate and precipitation. Much research has been done on the transport of human-made fine-grained matter in modern times. It is still unclear, though, what controls the transport process of fine-grained sediment from natural sources on the m...

Basin-wide sediment transport affects estimates of basin sediment yield, which is a fundamental scientific issue in drainage basin studies. Many studies have been conducted to examine erosion and deposition rates in drainage networks. In this study, we proposed a new approach using grain-size standard deviation model of sedimentary samples from dif...

In order to investigate the spatial-temporal evolution pattern and potential driving mechanism of lakes on a long time-scale, based on the Köppen climate classification, we classify Chinese climate as 4 climate zones, 6 climatic types and select 34 lakes which have reliable dating, and its lake records have certain continuity since the Last Glacial...

Millennial-scale variations in the Asian monsoon vapor transport are always associated with long-term changes in monsoon rainfall according to the conventional understanding. However, recent advances in monsoon studies suggested that regional monsoon rainfall has different responses to monsoon vapor transport. This paper presents a comparison betwe...

This study addressed the lake evolution of the Juyanze paleolake with the goal of calculating precipitation and evaporation during 34−26 cal kyr BP, which will aid evaluation of the reliability of using lake level changes to assess past changes in climate. Fourteen paleoshorelines were recognized at the Juyanze paleolake, and 14C dating results sho...

Verification of restoration policies that have been implemented is of significance to simultaneously reduce global environmental risks while also meeting economic development goals. This paper proposed a novel method according to the idea of multiple time scales to verify ecological restoration policies in the Shiyang River drainage basin, arid Chi...

In inland drainage basins, many studies have been conducted regarding the geomorphologic evolution processes in the upper and lower reaches, few of them have been done on the middle reaches, which are the pivotal areas connecting the erosion effects of the upper reaches and the deposition processes in terminal areas. In this study, we presented a m...

In the Asian monsoon margin of northwest China, millennial-scale precipitation and effective moisture changes during the Holocene differ from those observed in the primary monsoon area. Whether these differences were caused by a change in precipitation or other hydroclimate factors remains controversial. We selected Huahai Lake, located in the west...

Monsoon precipitation over China exhibits large spatial differences. It has been found that a significantly enhanced East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) is characterized by increased rainfall in northern China and by reduced rainfall in southern China, and this relationship occurs on different time scales during the Holocene. This study presents resul...

Monsoon precipitation over China exhibits large spatial differences. It has been found that a significantly enhanced East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) is characterized by increased rainfall in northern China and by reduced rainfall in southern China, and this relationship occurs on different time scales during the Holocene. This study presents resul...

The geomorphic evolution of different parts of the Shiyang River catchment was analyzed in this study, using Quaternary chronologies, sedimentary facies, grain size, geochemical proxies, and pollen proxies of sedimentary sections and study sites to examine millennial-scale geomorphic processes. Results indicate that during the early and middle Holo...

The East Asian winter monsoon (EAWM) exhibits significant variability on intraseasonal, interannual, and interdecadal time scales and the variability can be extended to Holocene centennial and millennial scales. Previous Holocene EAWM proxy data records, which were mostly located in Central, Eastern and Southern China, did not show a consistent Hol...

Citation: Li Y, Zhou XH, Zhang CQ, et al., 2014. Relationship between pollen assemblages and organic geochemical proxies and the response to cli‐ mate change in the Zhuye Lake sediments. Sciences in Cold and Arid Regions, 6(1): 37–43. ABSTRACT This paper examines the relationship among organic geochemical proxies (TOC, C/N ratio and δ 13 C) and pol...

The intensified monsoon increases summer rainfall and creates wet conditions in the Asian summer monsoon region during the early Holocene. Along with millennial-scale changes of the monsoon intensity, it is still unclear whether the boundary of the monsoon region changes according to monsoon variability. Investigations into the early Holocene envir...

Ecosystem response to climate change in high-altitude regions is a focus on global change research. Picea/Abies forests are widely distributed at high altitudes of East and Central Asia, and their distribution changes are sensitive to climate change. Humidity is an important climatic factor that affects high-altitude ecosystems; however, the relati...

The mid-latitudes of East Asia are characterized by the interaction between the Asian summer monsoon and the westerly winds. Understanding long-term climate change in the marginal regions of the Asian monsoon is critical for understanding the millennial-scale interactions between the Asian monsoon and the westerly winds. Abrupt climate events are a...

Ecosystem response to climate change in high-altitude regions is a focus on global change research. Picea/Abies forests are widely distributed at high altitudes of East and Central Asia, and their distribution changes are sensitive to climate change. Humidity is an important climatic factor that affects high-altitude ecosystems; however, the relati...

Carbonate deposition is a main inorganic carbon sink in lakes, which varies depending on climate change and internal lake dynamics. Research on the relationship between lake carbonate and climate will help to understand mechanisms of carbon cycle in lacustrine systems. The approach of this study is to explicitly link carbonate formation with Holoce...

Modern climate research has shown that the Asian summer monsoon water vapor transport is limited to the eastern part of the Qilian Mountains. On the Holocene millennial-scale, whether the northwest boundary of the summer monsoon varies according to climate change is a key scientific issue. Yanchi Lake is located in the northern Qilian Mountains and...

The pattern of Holocene environmental changes in the Asian monsoon margin on a millennial timescale remains controversial. Based on lithological characteristics and sedimentological proxies, we reconstructed Holocene-effective humidity changes and the lake evolution of Huahai Lake in the marginal area of the Asian monsoon in the Hexi Corridor of NW...

Methods for reconstruction of river runoff have been an important component of paleo-climatology and paleo-hydrology. The lower Heihe River was studied from 2002 to 2008 to reconstruct the annual average runoff at the Zhengyi Gorges hydrological station using measured data and improved water and energy balance equations. The results indicate that t...

Yanchi Lake is located in the northern Qilian Mountains and the central Hexi Corridor, which is a key research area for the long-term northern boundary changes of the Asian summer monsoon. Modern climate research shows that the Asian summer monsoon moisture transport is limited to the eastern part of Qilian Mountains. On the Holocene millennial-sca...

Qinghai Lake and Zhuye Lake, ∼400 km apart, are located in the northwest margin of the Asian summer monsoon. Water of these two lakes mostly comes from the middle and eastern parts of the Qilian Mountains. Previous studies show that the Holocene climate changes of the two lakes implied from lake records are different. Whether lake evaporation plays...