{"NOAAStudyId":"19480","contactInfo":{"address":"325 Broadway, E/NE31","city":"Boulder","constraints":"Please cite original publication, online resource, dataset and publication DOIs (where available), and date accessed when using downloaded data. If there is no publication information, please cite investigator, title, online resource, and date accessed. The appearance of external links associated with a dataset does not constitute endorsement by the Department of Commerce/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of external Web sites or the information, products or services contained therein. For other than authorized activities, the Department of Commerce/NOAA does not exercise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations. These links are provided consistent with the stated purpose of this Department of Commerce/NOAA Web site.","country":"USA","dataCenterUrl":"https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/paleoclimatology-data","email":"paleo@noaa.gov","fax":"303-497-6513","longName":"National Centers for Environmental Information, NESDIS, NOAA, U.S. Department of Commerce ","phone":"303-497-6280","postalCode":"80305-3328","shortName":"DOC/NOAA/NESDIS/NCEI","state":"CO","type":"CONTACT INFORMATION"},"contributionDate":"2015-11-05","dataPublisher":"NOAA","dataType":"PALEOLIMNOLOGY","dataTypeInformation":"https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/paleoclimatology-data/datasets/lake","difMetadataLink":"http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/metadata/published/paleo/dif/xml/noaa-lake-19480.xml","doi":null,"earliestYearBP":31754,"earliestYearCE":-29804,"entryId":"noaa-lake-19480","funding":[{"fundingAgency":"US National Science Foundation","fundingGrant":"ATM-0902805, Graduate Research Fellowship"}],"investigators":"Thomas, E.K.; Huang, Y.; Morrill, C.; Zhao, J.; Wegener, P.; Clemens, S.C.; Colman, S.M.; Gao, L.","mostRecentYearBP":24,"mostRecentYearCE":1926,"onlineResourceLink":"https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/19480","originalSource":null,"publication":[{"abstract":"Plants using the C4 (Hatch-Slack) photosynthetic pathway are key for global food production and account for ca 25% of terrestrial primary productivity, mostly in relatively warm, dry regions. The discovery of modern naturally-occurring C4 plant species at elevations up to 4500 m in Tibet and 3000 m in Africa and South America, however, suggests that C4 plants are present in a wider range of environments than previously thought. Environmental conditions on the Tibetan Plateau, including high irradiance, rainfall focused in summer, and saline soils, can favor C4 plants by offsetting the deleterious effects of low growing season temperature. We present evidence based on leaf wax carbon isotope ratios from Lake Qinghai that C4 plants accounted for 50% of terrestrial primary productivity on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau throughout the Lateglacial and early Holocene. Despite cold conditions, C4 plants flourished due to a combination of factors, including maximum summer insolation, pCO2 ca 250 ppmv, and sufficient summer precipitation. The modern C3 plant-dominated ecosystem around Lake Qinghai was established ca 6 thousand years ago as pCO2 increased and summer temperature and precipitation decreased. C4 plants were also intermittently abundant during the Last Glacial period; we propose that C4 plants contributed a significant portion of local primary productivity by colonizing the exposed, saline Qinghai Lake bed during low stands. Our results contrast with state-of-the-art ecosystem models that simulate <0.5% C4 plant abundance on the Tibetan Plateau in modern and past environments. The past abundance of C4 plants on the Tibetan Plateau suggests a wider temperature range for C4 plants than can be inferred from modern distributions and model simulations, and provides paleoecological evidence to support recent findings that C4 plant evolution and distribution was determined by a combination of climatic and environmental factors (temperature, irradiance, precipitation amount and seasonality, and soil salinity). Moreover, this finding highlights the exceptional sensitivity of high-elevation ecosystems to environmental change, and provides critical benchmarks for ecosystem model validation. ","author":{"name":"Elizabeth K. Thomas, Yongsong Huang, Carrie Morrill, Jiangtao Zhao, Pamela Wegener, Steven C. Clemens, Steven M. Colman, Li Gao"},"citation":"Elizabeth K. Thomas, Yongsong Huang, Carrie Morrill, Jiangtao Zhao, Pamela Wegener, Steven C. Clemens, Steven M. Colman, Li Gao. 2014. Abundant C4 plants on the Tibetan Plateau during the Lateglacial and early Holocene. Quaternary Science Reviews, 87, 24-33. doi: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2013.12.014","edition":null,"identifier":{"id":"10.1016/j.quascirev.2013.12.014","type":"doi","url":"http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2013.12.014"},"issue":null,"journal":"Quaternary Science Reviews","pages":"24-33","pubRank":"1","pubYear":2014,"reportNumber":null,"title":"Abundant C4 plants on the Tibetan Plateau during the Lateglacial and early Holocene","type":"publication","volume":"87"}],"reconstruction":"Y","scienceKeywords":["Monsoon"],"site":[{"NOAASiteId":"20682","geo":{"geoType":"Feature","geometry":{"coordinates":["37.058","100.303"],"type":"POINT"},"properties":{"easternmostLongitude":"100.303","maxElevationMeters":"3192","minElevationMeters":"3192","northernmostLatitude":"37.058","southernmostLatitude":"37.058","westernmostLongitude":"100.303"}},"locationName":"Continent>Asia>Eastern Asia>China>Qinghai","mappable":"Y","paleoData":[{"NOAADataTableId":"30078","coreLengthMeters":null,"dataFile":[{"NOAAKeywords":["earth science>paleoclimate>paleolimnology>carbon isotopes"],"fileUrl":"https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/paleolimnology/asia/china/qinghai2014d13c.txt","linkText":"Lake Qinghai Leaf Wax Carbon Isotope Data","urlDescription":"Data File","variables":[{"cvAdditionalInfo":null,"cvDataType":"PALEOLIMNOLOGY","cvDetail":null,"cvError":null,"cvFormat":"Character","cvMaterial":null,"cvMethod":null,"cvSeasonality":null,"cvShortName":null,"cvUnit":null,"cvWhat":"sampling metadata>notes"},{"cvAdditionalInfo":"C4 plants/total plants (avg); based on leaf wax isotopes","cvDataType":"CLIMATE RECONSTRUCTIONS|PALEOLIMNOLOGY","cvDetail":null,"cvError":null,"cvFormat":"Numeric","cvMaterial":"reconstruction material>isotope ratio>delta 13C","cvMethod":null,"cvSeasonality":null,"cvShortName":null,"cvUnit":"percent","cvWhat":"earth system variable>ecosystem variable>ecosystem quantity>C4 plants"},{"cvAdditionalInfo":"C4 plants/total plants (min using all possible isotopic endmembers for C3 and C4 plants); based on leaf wax isotopes","cvDataType":"CLIMATE RECONSTRUCTIONS|PALEOLIMNOLOGY","cvDetail":null,"cvError":"range lower bound","cvFormat":"Numeric","cvMaterial":"reconstruction material>isotope ratio>delta 13C","cvMethod":null,"cvSeasonality":null,"cvShortName":null,"cvUnit":"percent","cvWhat":"earth system variable>ecosystem variable>ecosystem quantity>C4 plants"},{"cvAdditionalInfo":"C4 plants/total plants (max using all possible isotopic endmembers for C3 and C4 plants); based on leaf wax isotopes","cvDataType":"CLIMATE RECONSTRUCTIONS|PALEOLIMNOLOGY","cvDetail":null,"cvError":"range upper bound","cvFormat":"Numeric","cvMaterial":"reconstruction material>isotope ratio>delta 13C","cvMethod":null,"cvSeasonality":null,"cvShortName":null,"cvUnit":"percent","cvWhat":"earth system variable>ecosystem variable>ecosystem quantity>C4 plants"},{"cvAdditionalInfo":null,"cvDataType":"CLIMATE RECONSTRUCTIONS|PALEOLIMNOLOGY","cvDetail":"composited","cvError":null,"cvFormat":"Numeric","cvMaterial":null,"cvMethod":null,"cvSeasonality":null,"cvShortName":null,"cvUnit":"centimeter","cvWhat":"depth variable>depth"},{"cvAdditionalInfo":null,"cvDataType":"CLIMATE RECONSTRUCTIONS|PALEOLIMNOLOGY","cvDetail":null,"cvError":null,"cvFormat":"Numeric","cvMaterial":null,"cvMethod":null,"cvSeasonality":null,"cvShortName":null,"cvUnit":"calendar year before present","cvWhat":"age variable>age"},{"cvAdditionalInfo":null,"cvDataType":"CLIMATE RECONSTRUCTIONS|PALEOLIMNOLOGY","cvDetail":null,"cvError":null,"cvFormat":"Numeric","cvMaterial":null,"cvMethod":null,"cvSeasonality":null,"cvShortName":null,"cvUnit":"centimeter","cvWhat":"depth variable>depth>depth at sample end"},{"cvAdditionalInfo":null,"cvDataType":"CLIMATE RECONSTRUCTIONS|PALEOLIMNOLOGY","cvDetail":null,"cvError":null,"cvFormat":"Numeric","cvMaterial":null,"cvMethod":null,"cvSeasonality":null,"cvShortName":null,"cvUnit":"centimeter","cvWhat":"depth variable>depth>depth at sample start"},{"cvAdditionalInfo":"C28 n-alkanoic acid. Methyl carbon removed","cvDataType":"PALEOLIMNOLOGY","cvDetail":"corrected","cvError":null,"cvFormat":"Numeric","cvMaterial":"chemical composition>compound>organic compound>organooxygen compound>fatty acid>n-alkanoic acid>C28 n-alkanoic acid","cvMethod":"isotope ratio mass spectrometry","cvSeasonality":null,"cvShortName":null,"cvUnit":"per mil","cvWhat":"chemical composition>isotope>isotope ratio>delta 13C"},{"cvAdditionalInfo":"C28 n-alkanoic acid; multiple measurements of the same sample","cvDataType":"PALEOLIMNOLOGY","cvDetail":"corrected","cvError":"one standard deviation","cvFormat":"Numeric","cvMaterial":"chemical composition>compound>organic compound>organooxygen compound>fatty acid>n-alkanoic acid>C28 n-alkanoic acid","cvMethod":"isotope ratio mass spectrometry","cvSeasonality":null,"cvShortName":null,"cvUnit":"per mil","cvWhat":"chemical composition>isotope>isotope ratio>delta 13C"},{"cvAdditionalInfo":null,"cvDataType":"PALEOLIMNOLOGY","cvDetail":null,"cvError":null,"cvFormat":"Numeric","cvMaterial":null,"cvMethod":null,"cvSeasonality":null,"cvShortName":null,"cvUnit":null,"cvWhat":"sampling metadata>notes"}]}],"dataTableName":"Qinghai2014d13C","dataTableNotes":null,"earliestYear":31754,"earliestYearBP":31754,"earliestYearCE":-29804,"mostRecentYear":24,"mostRecentYearBP":24,"mostRecentYearCE":1926,"species":[],"timeUnit":"cal yr BP"}],"siteName":"Lake Qinghai"}],"studyCode":null,"studyName":"Lake Qinghai, China 32 KYr Leaf Wax Carbon Isotope Data","studyNotes":"Carbon isotope (d13C) data on sedimentary leaf wax (C28 n-alkanoic acid) from Lake Qinghai, China for the past 32,000 years.","version":"1.0","xmlId":"17189"}