The arid region of central Asia is mainly affected by two climatic systems, the mid-latitude westerlies and the Siberian High. Variations in intensity and locations of these two pressure systems and their interaction have a strong influence on climate change in various parts of arid central Asia (Aizen et al., 1997), between 70–95°E and 35–45°N.

These climate reconstructions provide a chance to describe and understand the full range of natural climate system behavior of this region in the context of the past two millennia, a period that includes the so-called Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and the Little Ice Age (LIA).

Solomina and Alverson (2004) compiled paleoclimatic records derived from tree rings, glacier fluctuations, lake sediments and other proxies for the past 1500 years from high latitude Eurasia, including central Asia, the Arctic and Sub-Arctic, the Russian Plain, Caucasus, Eastern Siberia, and the Russian Far East. Unfortunately, all those proxy data come from the former Soviet Union territory, and exclude western China.

In addition, little attention was paid to the relationship between temperature and precipitation at different timescales. In particular, it is still unclear how the MWP and LIA were accompanied by precipitation changes. A better understanding of variations of the temperature/precipitation combination at various timescales would be helpful to predict the future development of water resource evolution in a warming environment. This paper attempts to make a synthesis of the available proxy records in arid central Asia to highlight temperature and precipitation variations during the last 2000 years. It particularly focuses on the relationship between temperature and precipitation changes on timescales ranging from annual to centennial. Fig. 1 illustrates the study area and proxy record sites used in this paper.