Weak Cooling of Cold Extremes Versus Continued Warming of Hot Extremes in China During the Recent Global Surface Warming Hiatus

Abstract

Using daily maximum temperature (Tmax), minimum temperature (Tmin), and mean temperature data of 437 weather stations in China, we compared variations of the mean with extreme ends of probability distribution of temperatures in China from 1960 to 2015. Our analysis confirmed that annual mean Tmax and Tmin experienced warming hiatus in China after 1998. The warming hiatus is also reflected by the weak cooling of cold extremes across China, but hot extremes continue the significant warming trend nationally and in climate regions of East China, Southwest China, and the Tibetan Plateau. During 1999–2015, the hot day frequency (Tx90, based on base period 1961–1990) and averaged Tmax above the 90th percentile of each year (Txp90) increased significantly by 3.70 d/decade and 0.20°C/decade nationally. But there were significant cooling trends of cold extremes in East China and Southeast China from 1999 to 2015. During the warming hiatus period, the obvious decline in warm season precipitation contributed to the ongoing warming of hot extremes in East China and Southwest China. Both the decrease of warming season solar irradiance and increase of warm season precipitation facilitated the weak cooling trends of hot extremes in Northeast China and North China Plain. Although mean temperature experienced warming hiatus after 1998, the continued warming of hot extremes and reverse from warming to weak cooling of cold extremes imply an increase of temperature variability in China simultaneously.

Variations in start date, end date, frequency and intensity of yearly temperature extremes across China during the period 1961–2017

“…China is susceptible to climate change (Chen and Zhai 2017). It was reported that the frequencies of warm days and warm nights have increased at rates of 0%-3.0% and 0%-4.0% per decade, respectively, in almost the entire region of China for the period 1961-2015 (Shi et al 2018), while the intensities of warm extremes have shown an asymmetric change pattern in China (Zhou et al 2016, Shen et al 2018. Spatially, warm extremes became significantly warmer in South China, northwestern North China, northeastern Northeast China, eastern Northwest China and eastern Southwest China.…”

More extreme marine heatwaves in the China Seas during the global warming hiatus

“…Though, there are still debates on the global warming hiatus, it is virtually certain that the warming hiatus were more noticeable in regional scales at the Northern Hemisphere (NH): for example, mainland China and Eurasian continents (Duan and Xiao 2015, Guan et al 2015, Li et al 2015, Garfinkel et al 2017, Sun et al 2017, Xie et al 2017, Shen et al 2018. Compared to the studies on the terrestrial warming hiatus, less focus has been given to warming hiatus at marginal seas.…”

Regional differences in shifts of temperature trends across China between 1980 and 2017

“…Meanwhile, most areas west of 108°E or south of 30°N were characterized by continual warming, rather than by a decelerated warming trend (Figures and ). It is likely that an increase in dryness or a decline in warm season precipitation in the southern China (Li et al ., ; Shen et al ., ) as well as the radiatively forced temperature effect in the western China (especially on the Tibetan Plateau) facilitated this continual warming (Ma et al ., ). Additionally, more than half of stations were characterized by monotonic temperature increase, which might also be directly related to continuous warming at the country level (Risbey et al ., ).…”

“…In earlier work, Wang et al (2010) analysed meteorological records in China for the period of 1961-2004 and showed that the warming trend started around 1980 in most stations and that this phenomenon gradually occurred later from north to south. Nevertheless, through applying the period of global warming "hiatus" for a priori justification to regional scales (Chen and Zhai, 2017), several recent studies pointed out that China also experienced a warming "hiatus" since 1998 (Li et al, 2015;Xie et al, 2017;Shen et al, 2018). In different regions, a strong warming "hiatus" in eastern China was observed during 1998-2013 (Chen and Zhai, 2017), especially in Northeast China (Sun et al, 2017), whereas an accelerated warming trend was detected on the Tibetan Plateau over the same period (Duan and Xiao, 2015;Ma et al, 2017).…”