Abstract:In this study, a total of 40 cores from 20 birch trees (Betula tianschanica) were obtained for one single site, named as Haerhatigou (HEX) in the middle section of the Kaiduhe River watershed in August 2011. All the tree-ring cores were naturally dried, mounted, surfaced, and cross-dated following standard dendrochronological procedures. Each ring-width was measured with a resolution of 0.001 mm by a dendrometer (Velmex Measuring System). The quality control of the cross-dating was carried out using the COFECHA program. Because of the low correlations with the master dating series, 5 cores from 3 trees were rejected. In the end, 35 cores from 18 trees were used for further analyses. The number of the absent rings is 78, and the rate of the absent rings in the samples is 2.325%. The ARSTAN program was used for de-trending and developing tree-ring chronologies. The age- and size- related variation of the tree-ring widths was removed by a single detrending process applied on each tree-ring measurement: a negative exponential curve, a kind of conservative function. After all these processes, three kinds of chronologies from one sample site were obtained: standard chronology (STD), residual chronology (RES), and Arstan chronology (ARS). The statistical characteristics of the HEX chronology are similar to other birch chronologies' in the previous studies. And the chronology can well represent the variety of the radial growth of birch trees in the study area. The significant positive correlations in the original, high-, and low- frequency domain between the HEX chronology and a chronology of spruce trees (HE4) mean that the dominant climatic factors of two kinds of trees are similar. Pearson correlation analysis was applied to investigate the relationship between the tree-ring width and the climatic data during the calibrated period (1952-2011). The monthly precipitation and mean temperature from the previous August to the current September and the average meteorological data in summer were used to assess how the climatic elements influence the growth of birch trees in the study area. The results of the tree growth-climate responses show that the HEX chronology was found to be positively correlated with the mean temperature of the previous December (r = 0.346, P < 0.01, n=59), and to be negatively correlated with the mean temperature of the current June (r = -0.312, P < 0.01, n=60). Conversely, the relationships between the HEX chronology and the precipitation are not so strong. The results of the power spectral analysis showed that the HEX chronology existed 2.1years and 4.0years cycles. The interannual cycles (2.1years and 4.0years) in our chronology fall within the range of some large-scale oscillation, such as quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) and El Nio-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The wavelet analysis demonstrated the existence of significant ~50years cycles of variability. The ~50years cycle suggests a possible important connection of the solar activity cycle (Gleissberg). The 50years cycle has been indicated by some previous studies in Changbai Mountains, Tianmushan Mountains, Huangshan Mountains, and the Changting region in Fujian Province. The similar trend between the chronology and the March Multivariate ENSO Index suggests that the variation of the HEX chronology has strong teleconnections with the oscillations of land-atmospheric-ocean circulation systems.