Lacking the Twentieth century’s temperature rise and global warming hiatus in the South-East of Iran

Temperature variability is important for Iran’s ecology and society due to is enhancement on the warm-dry climate. To date, however, long-term climate records are scarce in this key area due to its location at transition zone between Mediterranean climate regime and subtropical belt. In this study we developed a 1450-2016 tree-ring width (TRW) chronology from the upper Juniperus polycarpos forest limit from Kerman province, and investigated its relationship with climate records. The TRW was significantly correlated with the spring-summer temperatures and drought. Based on the TRW-climate relationship, we reconstructed March-October temperature back to 1655 CE which explained 44% of the temperature variance for the instrumental period (1957-2016). The temperature reconstruction showed inconsistent variations with that of Europe and Asia. It showed no warming trend during the twentieth century. However, the increasing temperature in the recent two decades, different from the global “warming hiatus”, may cause enhanced drought and elevated temperature stress for this warm-dry area.