全新世温度研究回顾及对历史人地关系的启示

最新一些研究结果强调了全新世期间的长期增温趋势,综合全球平均海平面、大陆冰盖面积、大气温室气体和太阳辐射证据来看,这比传统观点所认为的全新世期间的长期降温趋势,更具有合理性。回顾历史,结合最新的一些研究进展,发现支持“中全新世大暖期”和“晚全新世降温趋势”的证据存在明显的不确定性,最核心的问题为晚全新世加强的人类活动对代用指标或者证据的强烈扰动,使得其不能准确地反映真实的气候变化过程。鉴于目前全新世温度历史争论的核心关键在于晚全新世,因此有必要加强晚全新世温度变化研究。在人类活动影响较小的地区,或者利用对人类活动不敏感的代用指标开展研究,有望可以获得更可靠的晚全新世温度历史重建结果,为准确认识中华数千年文明的长期温度变化背景,进而理解期间的“人地关系”演化历史,并最终客观认识现今面临的以全球变暖为主要特征的气候环境问题,提供一定的科学基础。

Holocene temperature history and its significance to studies on historical human-land relationship in China

During the past few years, an increasing number of studies in both China and abroad have highlighted a long-term warming trend during the Holocene. However, this trend challenges the traditional view of a long-term Holocene cooling trend and a "mid-Holocene Megathermal". Comparison of long-term records indicating a rising global sea level, a decreasing area of terrestrial ice-sheets, and increasing radiative forcings of insolation and GHGs (greenhouse gases) leads us to conclude that a long-term Holocene warming trend is more reasonable than the cooling trend. In the original literature documenting a "mid-Holocene Megathermal" and the subsequent late Holocene cooling trend in China, the uncertainties in the supporting evidence are clearly indicated. These uncertainties have been further demonstrated by recent results that the most significant uncertainty arises from the impacts of human activities on sedimentary proxies, especially in the late Holocene when these impacts were greatly intensified. Thus, reconstructions of late Holocene temperature history based on sedimentary proxies are potentially biased by human impacts. Given that the current debate regarding temperature history of the Holocene focuses on the late Holocene, we propose that future emphasis should be placed on the temperature history of the late Holocene. We suggest that more reliable late Holocene temperature records should come from areas and/or sedimentary proxies that are weakly influenced by human activities, which is especially important to studies on the development of Chinese civilization that lasted for over several millennia. Overall, reliable late Holocene temperature records can potentially provide a reliable foundation for improving our understanding of the following themes: (1) the development of Chinese civilization under the background of long-term temperature change; (2) the evolutionary history of "human-land relationship" during the late Holocene; and (3) the climatic and environmental issues associated with global warming.