February–May temperature reconstruction based on tree-ring widths of Abies fargesii from the Shennongjia area in central China

February–May temperature strongly affects ecological processes and socio-economics in central China, yet its long-term variability has not been thoroughly assessed due to the shortness of instrumental records. In order to improve the understanding of the regularities of temperature variability in central China, in this study, we present a new tree-ring chronology from the Shengnongjia Mountains in central China which provides a valuable 245-year record of temperature variability. The reconstructed temperature correlated strongly with February–May mean temperature records of the Fangxian meteorological station from AD 1958 to AD 2011, and the derived reconstruction explained 44.5 % of the instrumental temperature variation during this period. The study shows that this region experienced three warm periods and two cool periods, i.e., the major warm periods occurred in AD 1783–1806, AD 1879–1909, and AD 1975 to the present, whereas the cool intervals occurred in AD 1807–1878 and AD 1910–1974. This reconstruction could aid in the evaluation of regional climate variability in subtropical China.