Holocene Climate and Environmental Change in Arid Central Asia
A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Climatology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 1 December 2026 | Viewed by 16
Special Issue Editors
Interests: pollen; charcoal; Asian drylands; climate change; paleoclimate reconstruction; fire activity; Holocene; human–environment interactions
Interests: Arid Central Asia; climate change; vegetation change; human–environment interactions
Interests: Arid Central Asia; climate change; paleoclimate reconstruction; fire activity
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Arid Central Asia (ACA), located at the core of the Eurasian continent, represents a highly sensitive region governed by the interaction between the mid-latitude westerlies and the Asian monsoon system. This climatic junction has experienced marked variations in temperature, precipitation, hydrology, dust activity, and ecosystem structure from the Holocene to the present. Understanding these changes is essential for clarifying the mechanisms that drive hydroclimate variability in large arid regions and for improving projections of future climate behavior under ongoing global warming.
This Special Issue focuses on advancing quantitative reconstructions and process-based understanding of climate and environmental change in ACA across multiple timescales. We welcome studies that employ multi-proxy sedimentary archives, instrumental and historical climate data, remote-sensing observations, and numerical climate modeling to investigate past and present hydroclimate variability, vegetation and fire dynamics, dust-storm regimes, and lake or river system evolution. Contributions that integrate proxy records with model simulations to evaluate climate forcing mechanisms—such as solar variability, volcanic activity, internal atmospheric dynamics, or land-surface feedbacks—are particularly encouraged.
Submissions may include original research articles and comprehensive reviews addressing the following:
- Hydroclimate variability from the Holocene to the modern era;
- Westerlies–monsoon interactions and regional atmospheric circulation;
- Quantitative reconstructions of temperature, precipitation, or effective moisture;
- Vegetation, fire, and dust-storm responses to climatic variability;
- Lake-level, river-system, and hydrological evolution;
- Climate-model simulations and data–model comparisons.
We look forward to receiving your contributions.
Dr. Guoqiang Ding
Dr. Yu Hu
Dr. Wensheng Zhang
Dr. Shuai Ma
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- Arid Central Asia
- Holocene
- climate change
- vegetation change
- climate model
- paleoclimate reconstruction
- dust storm
- fire activity
- lake and hydrological evolution
- westerlies–monsoon interactions
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