Given growing concerns about global climate change, it is critical to understand both historical and current shifts in the hydroclimate, particularly in regions critically entwined with global circulation. The Tibetan Plateau, the Earth's largest and highest plateau, is a nexus for global atmospheric processes, significantly influencing East Asian hydroclimate dynamics through the synergy of the Asian Monsoon and the Westerlies. Yet, understanding historical and recent hydroclimate fluctuations and their wide-ranging ecological and societal consequences remains challenging due to short instrumental observations and partly ambiguous proxy reconstructions. Here, we present a precisely-dated 3476-year precipitation reconstruction derived from tree-ring δ18O data on the Tibetan Plateau, representing one of the few multi-millennia-long annually-resolved terrestrial δ18O records to date. Our findings reveal that the 20th century drought extremes are severe within the past three millennia, and likely linked to the weakening of both the Asian Monsoon and Westerlies due to anthropogenic aerosol emissions. Additionally, our analyses identified three distinct stages (110 BC-AD 280, AD 330-770 and AD 950-1300) characterized by shifts toward arid hydroclimate conditions, corresponding to significant social unrest and dynasty collapses, which underscores the potential societal impacts of severe hydroclimatic shifts.

CAS Center for Excellence in Quaternary Science and Global Change Chinese Academy of Sciences Xi'an China

Centre for Southern Hemisphere Ocean Research CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere Hobart TAS Australia

College of Atmospheric Sciences Chengdu University of Information Technology Chengdu China

Department of Earth Science California State University Dominguez Hills Carson CA USA

Department of Earth Sciences University of Gothenburg Gothenburg Sweden

Department of Environment and Biodiversity University of Salzburg Salzburg Austria

Department of Geography Faculty of Science Masaryk University Brno Czechia

Department of Geography University of Cambridge Cambridge UK

Global Change Research Institute Czech Academy of Sciences Brno Czechia

Institute for Advanced Ocean Study Ocean University of China Qingdao China

Institute of Geography Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen Nürnberg Erlangen Germany

Institute of Global Environmental Change Xi'an Jiaotong University Xi'an China

Institute of Integrative Biology ETH Zurich Zurich Switzerland

Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment Chinese Academy of Sciences Chengdu China

Institute of Subtropical Agriculture Chinese Academy of Sciences Changsha China

Jiangsu Center for Collaborative Innovation in Geographical Information Resource Development and Application School of Geography Nanjing Normal University Nanjing China

Key Laboratory for Virtual Geographic Environment Ministry of Education School of Geography Nanjing Normal University Nanjing China

Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research University of Bern Bern Switzerland

Research Unit Forest Dynamics Swiss Federal Research Institute Birmensdorf Switzerland

School of Archaeology and Museology Peking University Beijing China

State Key Laboratory Cultivation Base of Geographical Environment Evolution of Jiangsu Province School of Geography Nanjing Normal University Nanjing China

The Laboratory of Tree Ring Research The University of Arizona Tucson AZ USA

The State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology Institute of Earth Environment Chinese Academy of Sciences Xi'an China

Xi'an Institute for Innovative Earth Environment Research Xi'an China

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