Forests in the Tibetan Plateau are thought to be vulnerable to climate extremes, yet they also tend to exhibit resilience contributing to the maintenance of ecosystem services in and beyond the plateau. So far the spatiotemporal pattern in tree resilience in the Tibetan Plateau remains largely unquantified and the influence of specific factors on the resilience is poorly understood. Here, we study ring‐width data from 849 trees at 28 sites in the Tibetan Plateau with the aim to quantify tree resilience and determine their diving forces. Three extreme drought events in years 1969, 1979, and 1995 are detected from metrological records. Regional tree resistance to the three extreme droughts shows a decreasing trend with the proportion of trees having high resistance ranging from 71.9%, 55.2%, to 39.7%. Regional tree recovery is increasing with the proportion of trees having high recovery ranging from 28.3%, 52.2%, to 64.2%. The area with high resistance is contracting and that of high recovery is expanding. The spatiotemporal resistance and recovery are associated with moisture availability and diurnal temperature range, respectively. In addition, they are both associated with forest internal factor represented by growth consistence among trees. We conclude that juniper trees in the Tibetan Plateau have increased resilience to extreme droughts in the study period. We highlight pervasive resilience in juniper trees. The results have implications for predicting tree resilience and identifying areas vulnerable to future climate extremes.

The South Asian Monsoon and mid-latitude Westerlies are two important controls on Tibetan Plateau (TP) fresh water resources. Understanding their interaction requires long-term information on spatial patterns in moisture variability on the TP. Here we develop a network of 23 moisture-sensitive tree-ring chronologies from major juniper forests in a north–south transect on the eastern TP. Over the past five and a half centuries, we find that these chronologies cluster into two groups, North and South, of ∼33° N. Southern and northern regional chronology subsets are positively and significantly correlated with May–June Palmer Drought Severity Indices (PDSI). The meridional moisture stress gradient reconstructed from these data suggests substantial stochastic variation, yet persistent moisture stress differences are observed between 1463–1502 CE and 1693–1734 CE. Identification of these patterns provides clues linking them with forced or intrinsic tropical–extratropical interactions and thus facilitates studies of interannual–decadal dipole variations in hydroclimate over the TP.

The recent increase in the frequency of winter cold extremes has received particular attention in light of the climate's warming. Knowledge about changes in the frequency of winter cold extremes requires long-term climate data over large spatial scale. In this study, a temperature-sensitive tree-ring network consisting of 31 sampling sites collected from seven provinces in subtropical China was used to investigate the characteristics of cold-season temperature extremes during the past two centuries. The results show that the percentage of trees in a year that experienced an abnormal decrease in radial growth relative to the previous year can serve as an indicator of interannual change in January–March temperature in subtropical China. The frequency of extreme interannual decreases in cold-season temperature has increased since the 1930s. The change in cold-season temperature was significantly correlated with the intensity of the Siberian high, yet the correlation was much weaker in the period preceding the 1930s. The findings provide evidence of a frequency change in the occurrence of interannual cold-season temperature extremes in the past two centuries for subtropical China. Particularly, the pattern in the variation of cold-season temperature suggests a change in climate systems around the 1930s.

Forest growth and recruitment and their relationships to climate are complex. The aims of our study are (i) to examine the patterns in tree radial growth and recruitment along an altitudinal gradient in Mt. Everest region and (ii) to identify the climatic factors that are responsible to the observed patterns in tree growth and recruitment. Four plots, each 30 × 60 m in size, were established from the lower to upper limits of the eastern Himalayan fir forest in Dingjie County of the Mt. Everest Nature Reserve, China. Dendrochronological techniques were applied to obtain information about the radial growth and age of the trees in the plots. Correlation analysis was used to identify the relationships between radial growth and recruitment of trees and climatic variables, i.e. monthly mean temperature and Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI). The population age structure was analyzed to investigate the recruitment history. The timberline plot was characterized by significant tree recruitments in the recent three decades and sporadic recruitments in earlier periods. The other three plots showed recruitment pulses during 1880–1910 in Plot 3 700 m, during 1870–80 and 1920–30 in Plot 3 520 m and during 1900–40 in Plot 3 410 m. The recruitment of fir trees in the timberline was sensitive to summer (June–September) temperatures, but it was mainly controlled by episodic disturbances in lower altitudes. Fir radial growth in the upper two plots was positively correlated with previous winter and current August temperature. Fir radial growth at the two lower plots was positively correlated with PDSI from previous September to current September.