Holocene Climate Changes in the Asia-Pacific Region

As a fast-growing economic region, more than two-thirds of the global population lives in the Asia-Pacific region. Climate changes in this region not only affect the livelihood and well-being of inhabitants directly, but also influence the world's sustainable development. However, both the hydroclimatic patterns and the mechanisms of climate change over different sub-regions are far from well-known. Reconstructing these changes on different timescales in Asia-Pacific region during the Holocene and shedding light on the driving mechanisms is therefore essential; it will enable a better understanding of the present climatic conditions and their impacts, and prediction of climatic trends, especially in the context of a continuous global warming.

This Research Topic aims to gather paleoclimatologists, paleohydrologists, archeologists and climate simulators, and will focus on high-resolution climate reconstructions from the Asia-Pacific region during the Holocene, the environmental and social impacts of climate changes in Asia-Pacific region during this time, and the driving forces of climate change on different temporal and spatial scales. The responses of ecological changes and biological diversity changes to global/regional climatic changes, and the feedbacks will also be discussed.

We welcome studies from the following research fields:
1. Well-dated and high-resolution paleoclimate reconstructions by using various achieves, including speleothems, lake sediments, peats, ice cores, corals, tree rings, etc;
2. Numerical simulations and climate dynamics;
3. Environmental archaeology; and
4. Ecological changes, biological diversity, and their responses and feedback to global/regional climatic changes.

This Research Topic has been realised in collaboration with Dr Yonaton Goldsmith.

Cover Image credit: Topic Editor Hai Xu