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JOURNAL OF DESERT RESEARCH ›› 2000, Vol. 20 ›› Issue (2): 171-177.

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Contribution to Global Change of Mongolian Plateau and Loess Plateau in the Last Glaciation and Interglacial Periods

FENG Zhao-dong1,2, CHEN Fa-hu1, ZHANG Hu-cai1, MA Yu-zhen1   

  1. 1. School of Resources and Environment, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China;
    2. Department of Earth and Environmental Studies, Montclair State University, New Jersey, U.S.A
  • Received:1999-01-20 Revised:1999-03-25 Online:2000-06-20 Published:2000-06-20

Abstract: It is well known that the long-term variations of the Earth's climate are controlled by the geometric relationships between the Earth and the Sun.However,15%~20% of the long-term variations remain unexplained.As for the short-term variations,many hypotheses are circulating.Among them,dominant is the North Atlantic related.It states that the short-term variations have been controlled by the variations of the sea-surface temperature in the North Atlantic.Nevertheless,variations of sub-orbital timescale in ENSO of the Tropical Pacific may be more qualified in modulating the global sub-orbital changes.Furthermore,the biggest continent,Eurasia,might have played much more important role than it has been thought.For instance,the changes in both the extent of the arid-semiarid areas and the efficiency of atmospheric dust supply from these areas in the east-central Asia might have been very significant in affecting the albedo and dust supply to the mid-latitude oceans.The albedo controls the temperature and the dust supply modulates the atmospheric CO2 level through providing the iron fertilization to nitrogen and carbon fixation that consumes atmospheric CO2.

Key words: arid area, east-central Asia, quaternary, global change

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