Ranking Regional Drought Events in China for 1960--2009

The spatiotemporal variations of the site and regional droughts in China during 1960–2009 were analyzed by applying a daily composite-drought index (CDI) to 722 stations in mainland China. Droughts frequently happened in a zone extended from Southwest China to the Yellow River, North China, and the southwestern part of Northeast China, with two centers of high frequency in North China and Southwest China. In Southwest and South China, droughts tend to happen during the winter. In North China and along the Yellow River, droughts mainly occur during the winter and during May–June. During the past 50 years, the geographical distribution of site drought events showed high frequencies (0.9–1.3 times per year) in the upper Yellow River basin and North China, comparing with moderate frequencies (0.6–0.9 times per year) in Southwest China and the southwestern part of Northeast China and with lower frequencies over the middle and lower Yangtze River basin. And the frequencies increased over mainland China except for the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. A regional drought (RD) event is a widespread and persistent event that covers at least five adjacent sites and lasts for at least 10 days. There were 252 RD events in the past 50 years—five times per year. Most RD events lasted for <100 days and covered <100 stations, but the longest and largest RD event lasted for 307 days from 6 September 1998 to 9 July 1999 and covered 327 stations from North to Southwest China.     

1960—2009年中国冬季区域性极端低温事件的时空特征

采用区域性极端低温事件客观识别技术对1960—2009年的区域性极端低温事件进行检测,并分析其空间分布和时间演变特征。结果表明：区域性极端低温事件指标中最低温度和几何中心纬度的频次分布为双峰特征,发生频次较高的纬度主要位于30°N和42°N附近,且1980年代中期以前南北两个带并存,之后则以30°N附近为主;1960—2009年事件的发生频次、强度和最大覆盖面积等呈总体减弱趋势,在1980年代后期存在显著的转折,1990年代后期变化逐渐趋于平缓,并且这种变化主要是由占总数10%的持续时间长和空间范围广的事件作用的结果。此外,对体现事件多方面影响的综合指标进行等级划分并分析其变化特征。     

Characteristics of the Regional Meteorological Drought Events in Southwest China During 1960–2010

An objective identification technique for regional extreme events(OITREE) and the daily compositedrought index(CI) at 101 stations in Southwest China(including Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Chongqing)are used to detect regional meteorological drought events between 1960 and 2010. Values of the parameters of the OITREE method are determined. A total of 87 drought events are identified, including 9 extreme events. The 2009–2010 drought is the most serious in Southwest China during the past 50 years. The regional meteorological drought events during 1960–2010 generally last for 10–80 days, with the longest being 231days. Droughts are more common from November to next April, and less common in the remaining months.Droughts occur more often and with greater intensity in Yunnan and southern Sichuan than in other parts of Southwest China. Strong(extreme and severe) regional meteorological drought events can be divided into five types. The southern type has occurred most frequently, and Yunnan is the area most frequently stricken by extreme and severe drought events. The regional meteorological drought events in Southwest China have increased in both frequency and intensity over the study period, and the main reason appears to be a significant decrease in precipitation over this region, but a simultaneous increase in temperature also contributes.     

Identifying Regional Prolonged Low Temperature Events in China

This study examined regional prolonged low temperature (PLT) events in China from the observational station data for the period 1960–2008 using the new criteria. The new definition of a site PLT event is that the daily minimum temperature does not exceed the 10th percentile threshold of the local daily minimum temperature climatology for at least 5 days at a station. The regional PLT event is defined as at least five adjacent stations exhibiting site PLT simultaneously for >5 d. Under the new definition, 552 regional PLT events were identified, and three indices: duration, extent, and intensity, as well as a comprehensive index (CI) were used to quantify the event severity. In addition, geographical patterns and temporal variations of regional PLT events were investigated using three event categories: strong, moderate, and weak. Spatially, strong events were mainly located in the north of Xinjiang and along the Yangtze River to the south of the Yangtze River; moderate events occurred in Xinjiang and south of the Yangtze River; and weak events occurred south of the Yellow River. The variation for the annual frequency of regional PLT events in China in the last 49 years showed a significant decreasing trend with a rate of-1.99 times per decade, and the significant transition decade was the 1980s.     

Simulation of Extreme Climate Events over China with Different Regional Climate Models

During phase Ⅱof the Regional Climate Model Inter-comparison Project (RMIP) for Asia,the Asian climate was estimated from July 1988 to December 1998 using six climate models.In this paper,the abilities of six climate models to simulate several important extreme climate events in China during the last years of the last century were analyzed.The modeled results for the intensity of the precipitation anomaly over the Yangtze-Huaihe Valley during the summers of 1991 and 1998 were weaker than the observed values.The positive precipitation anomaly responsible for a catastrophic flood in 1991 was well reproduced in almost all simulation results,but the intensity and range of the precipitation anomaly in 1998 were weaker in the modeled results.The spatial distribution of extreme climate events in 1997,when severe drought affected North China and flood impacted South China,was reproduced by most of the regional models because the anomaly of the large-scale background field was well-simulated,despite poor simulation of high temperature areas in the north during the summer by all models.     

Characteristics and Changes of Cold Surge Events over China during 1960-2007

This paper demonstrates regional characteristics, a long-term decreasing trend, and decadal variations in the frequency of cold surge events based on daily mean temperature and daily minimum temperature data in mainland China from 1960 to 2008. During these 48 years, four high frequency centers of cold surge events were located in Xinjiang, central North China, northeast China, and southeast China. A main frequency peak of cold surge events occurs in autumn for the four regions and another peak is detected in spring over northeast China and southeast China. The regional pattern of cold surge frequencies is in accordance with the perturbation kinetic energy distribution in October-December, January, and February-April. The long-term decreasing trend （-0.2 times/decade） of cold surge frequencies in northeast China and decadal variations in China are related to the variations of the temperature difference between southern and northern China in the winter monsoon season; these variations are due to the significant rising of winter temperatures in high latitudes.     

华北地区极端干旱事件的变化特征

利用华北地区1961—2015年72个测站的月降水资料,采用一元线性回归、M-K非参数检验、小波变换、分形理论等方法,研究了华北地区极端干旱事件的变化特征。结果表明,华北地区极端干旱事件频次呈波动递增趋势,递增率为0.21次/10a。1981—1993年极端干旱事件频次低于平均值;1994—2015年的高于平均值,处于极端干旱期。极端干旱事件频次距平值年代际变化差异较大:1961—1980年极端干旱发生频次距平值正负交替;1981—1993年的为负值;1994—2015年的为正值。华北地区极端干旱事件频次在2003年发生了突变性增加,极端干旱事件频次Hurst指数值为0.55,具有长相关性,未来10年内华北地区极端干旱频次呈递增的发展趋势。     

Changes in Extreme Events as Simulated by a High-Resolution Regional Climate Model for the Next 20–30 Years over China

In this paper, the changes in temperature and precipitation extremes over the next 20-30 years (2021-2050) in relative to the present day (1986-2005) under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) A1B scenario are analyzed based on a high-resolution climate change simulation performed by a regional climate model (the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) RegCM3). The extreme indices of summer days (SU), frost days (FD), and growing season length (GSL) for temperature and simple daily intensity index (SDII), number of days with precipitation ≥10 mm d-1 (R10), and consecutive dry days (CDD) for precipitation are used as the indicators of the extremes. The results show that the indices simulated by RegCM3 in the present day show good agreement with the observed. A general increase in SU, a decrease in FD, and an increase in GSL are found to occur in the next 20-30 years over China. A general increase in SDII, an increase in R10 over western China, and a decrease in R10 in north, northeast, and central China are simulated by the model. Changes in CDD are characterized by a decrease in the north and an increase in the south and the Tibetan Plateau.     

近50年华北区域性气象干旱事件的特征分析

本文利用区域性极端事件客观识别法(OITREE),进行了1961—2010年华北地区区域性气象干旱事件的识别,确定了该方法中相应的参数组并识别得到100次事件,并对排名前15位的事件与文献记载情况逐一进行对比检验。结果表明OITREE方法对华北地区区域性气象干旱具有良好的识别能力。100次华北地区区域性气象干旱事件分为10次极端事件、20次重度事件、40次中等事件和30次轻度事件,其中1998年9月至1999年5月秋冬春连旱是华北地区强度最强的干旱事件。事件的持续时间一般在17~120 d、最大影响面积集中在(70~105)×10~4km~2之间,干旱事件具有较明显的季节特征,3—7和10—11月是事件的两个高发时段;华北南部为干旱多发区,其中河北、河南和山东三省交界为强度中心区域。重度(含)及以上的干旱事件可分为全境型、东部型、南部型、西部型、中部型和零散型6种分布类型,其中全境型出现机率最高。近50年华北地区区域性干旱事件频次、累积综合强度总体呈上升趋势,其主要原因可能是降水量减少所致,同时气温显著升高也起到了明显的推动作用。     

The Effects of Model Resolution on the Simulation of Regional Climate Extreme Events

The fifth-generation Pennsylvania State University/NCAR Mesoscale Model Version 3 (MM5V3) was used to simulate extreme heavy rainfall events over the Yangtze River Basin in June 1999. The effects of model's horizontal and vertical resolution on the extreme climate events were investigated in detail. In principle, the model was able to characterize the spatial distribution of monthly heavy precipitation. The results indicated that the increase in horizontal resolution could reduce the bias of the modeled heavy rain and reasonably simulate the change of daily precipitation during the study period. A finer vertical resolution led to obviously improve rainfall simulations with smaller biases, and hence, better resolve heavy rainfall events. The increase in both horizontal and vertical resolution could produce better predictions of heavy rainfall events. Not only the rainfall simulation altered in the cases of different horizontal and vertical grid spacing, but also other meteorological fields demonstrated diverse variations in terms of resolution change in the model. An evident improvement in the simulated sea level pressure resulted from the increase of horizontal resolution, but the simulation was insensitive to vertical grid spacing. The increase in vertical resolution could enhance the simulation of surface temperature as well as atmospheric circulation at low levels, while the simulation of circulation at middle and upper levels were found to be much less dependent on changing resolution. In addition, cumulus parameterization schemes showed high sensitivity to horizontal resolution. Different convective schemes exhibited large discrepancies in rainfall simulations with regards to changing resolution. The percentage of convective precipitation in the Grell scheme increased with increasing horizontal resolution. In contrast, the Kain-Fritsch scheme caused a reduced ratio of convective precipitation to total rainfall accumulations corresponding to increasing horizontal resolution.     

1876-1878年中国大范围持续干旱事件

研究1876-1878年中国持续3年的大范围严重干旱,这是发生在小冰期将结束、全球气候迅速变暖之前的寒冷气候背景下的重大气象灾害和极端气候事件。依据历史文献记载复原了干旱发生、发展的动态过程,统计逐年受旱县数,绘制了历年旱灾和伴生的饥荒、蝗灾、疫疾发生地域实况图。这次持续干旱范围广及13个省份,干旱的中心区域在山西、河南、陕西。旱区中心1877年连续无透雨时段超过200 d,跨年度的连续无透雨时段最长达340 d。其严重程度超过20世纪最严重的1928-1930年的干旱事件。该事件发生于太阳黑子第11活动周的下降时段和第12周的太阳黑子极小值年,又位于厄尔尼诺（El Nino）事件频繁期, 对应于极强的El Nino事件。     

Characteristics of Clustering Extreme Drought Events in China During 1961-2010

Based on the Multi-Scale Standardized Precipitation Index (MSPI), extreme severe drought events in China during 1961-2010 were identified, and the seasonal, annual, and interdecadal variations of the clustering extreme drought events were investigated by using the spatial point process theory. It is found that severe droughts present a trend of gradual increase as a result of the significant increase and clustering tendency of severe droughts in autumn. The periodicity analysis of the clustering extreme droughts in different seasons suggests that there is a remarkable interdecadal change in the occurrence of clustering extreme droughts in winter. Meanwhile, it is revealed that the clustering extreme drought events exhibit greatly different annual mean spatial distributions during 1961-2010, with scattered and concentrated clustering zones alternating on the decadal timescale. Furthermore, it is found that the decadal-mean spatial distributions of extreme drought events in summer are correlated out of phase with those of the rainy bands over China in the past 50 years, and a good decadal persistence exists between the autumn and winter extreme droughts, implying a salient feature of consecutive autumn-winter droughts in this 50-yr period. Compared with other regions of China, Southwest China bears the most prominent characteristic of clustering extreme droughts.     

Geographical Patterns and Temporal Variations of Regional Dry and Wet Heatwave Events in China during 1960–2008

Daily maximum/minimum temperatures and relative humidity records from 510 stations in China for the period 1960–2008 were used to investigate geographical patterns and temporal variations of heatwave (HW) events. Dry and wet HW events were compared by different definitions. Regionally, both dry and wet HW events are commonly located in southeastern China in the monsoon area, with neither type occurring in the northeast part of Northeast China and Southwest China, while the north-northwest region of the country experiences dry HW events and a few wet HW events. In the southeast of the country, site dry HW events occurred from April to September and mostly in June, while site wet HW events occurred from April to October and mostly in September. In total, 163 regional wet HW events were identified. The ten longest regional wet HW events lasted for more than 20 days, while the mean duration for 163 events was about 11 days. For the top ten events, six occurred after the 1990s, compared with four before this time. Global surface warming was clear since 1979, but the frequency and severity of regional wet HW events were relatively low in the 1980s, increasing remarkably since the 1990s. Possible reasons for this might be the strong interdecadal and interannual variations in regional atmospheric circulations, as well as water transport related directly to temperature contrasts in different regions, rather than global-mean temperature changes.     

2003年云南夏季罕见高温干旱的诊断研究

2003年夏季云南出现了历史上罕见的大范围异常高温干旱天气,是自1961年以来云南最严重的夏季高温干旱天气之一,影响范围、持续时间及危害程度仅次于1983年。是20世纪80年代中期云南进入气温偏暖期后的一次夏季极端气候事件,打破多项历史纪录。利用高度、OLR、TBB等资料对此次气候灾害过程进行了诊断分析。发现西太平洋副热带高压持续稳定且偏强偏西,季风低压偏弱偏西,云南TBB值偏高,降水云系较少,OLR值偏高,对流活动抑制,云南正好处于东、西两个垂直环流圈的下沉气流控制区是形成高温干旱的主要原因。     

2023年中国气候异常特征及主要天气气候事件

2023年,我国气候主要表现为暖干的特征,全国平均气温10.71℃,较1991—2020年气候平均偏高0.82℃,为1951年以来最暖;全国平均降水量615.0 mm,较常年偏少3.9%,为2012年以来第二少。四季气温均较常年同期偏高,其中夏、秋季分别为历史同期次高和最高;除秋季降水偏多外,其余三季降水均偏少。汛期(5—9月),全国平均降水量较常年同期偏少4.3%,为2012年以来第二少,我国中东部降水总体呈“中间多南北少”的分布。2023年,我国区域性气象干旱多发,西南地区遭遇冬春连旱;春季北方沙尘天气过程偏多;夏季前期,华北和黄淮遭受1961年以来最强高温过程;7月底至8月初,受台风杜苏芮影响,京津冀地区发生历史罕见极端强降水过程,华北地区出现“旱涝急转”;华西秋雨开始早、结束晚、雨量多;1月中旬发生年内最强寒潮过程;秋末冬初冷空气频繁入侵,12月华北和黄淮等地降雪日数偏多、积雪偏深。     

长江流域1960-2004年极端强降水时空变化趋势

Recent trends of the rainfall, intensity and frequency of extreme precipitation (EP) over the Yangtze River Basin are analyzed in this paper. Since the mid-1980s the rainfall of EP in the basin has significantly increased, and the most significant increment occurred in the southeast mid-lower reaches, and southwest parts of the basin. Summer witnessed the most remarkable increase in EP amount. Both the intensity and frequency of EP events have contributed to the rising of EP amount, but increase in frequency contributed more to the increasing trend of EP than that in intensity. The average intervals between adjacent two EP events have been shortened. It is also interesting to note that the monthly distribution of EP events in the upper basin has changed, and the maximum frequency is more likely to occur in June rather than in July. The synchronization of the maximum frequency month between the upper and mid-lower reaches might have also increased the risk of heavy floods in the mid-lower reaches of the Yangtze River.     

Moisture Transport and Associated Background Circulation for the Regional Extreme Precipitation Events over South China in Recent 41 Years

Based on the hourly precipitation data at 176 observational stations over south China and the hourly ERA5reanalysis data during the 40-yr period of 1981-2020, we analyzed the universal characteristics of moisture transport and their associated background circulations for four types of regional extreme precipitation events(REPEs) over south China. Main findings are shown as follow.(i) The wind that transported moisture for the REPEs over south China featured a notable diurnal variation, which was...     

Change in Extreme Climate Events over China Based on CMIP5

The changes in a selection of extreme climate indices(maximum of daily maximum temperature(TXx),minimum of daily minimum temperature(TNn),annual total precipitation when the daily precipitation exceeds the 95th percentile of wet-day precipitation(very wet days,R95p),and the maximum number of consecutive days with less than 1 mm of precipitation(consecutive dry days,CDD))were projected using multi-model results from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project in the early,middle,and latter parts of the 21st century under different Representative Concentration Pathway(RCP)emissions scenarios.The results suggest that TXx and TNn will increase in the future and,moreover,the increases of TNn under all RCPs are larger than those of TXx.R95p is projected to increase and CDD to decrease significantly.The changes in TXx,TNn,R95p,and CDD in eight sub-regions of China are different in the three periods of the 21st century,and the ranges of change for the four indices under the higher emissions scenario are projected to be larger than those under the lower emissions scenario.The multi-model simulations show remarkable consistency in their projection of the extreme temperature indices,but poor consistency with respect to the extreme precipitation indices.More substantial inconsistency is found in those regions where high and low temperatures are likely to happen for TXx and TNn,respectively.For extreme precipitation events(R95p),greater uncertainty appears in most of the southern regions,while for drought events(CDD)it appears in the basins of Xinjiang.The uncertainty in the future changes of the extreme climate indices increases with the increasing severity of the emissions scenario.     

1961-2005年宁夏极端降水事件变化趋势分析

利用1961-2005年宁夏逐日降水量资料,将降水量划分为9个级别,分析了宁夏45 a来各级别降水日数的变化趋势。结果表明：年降水量以平均3.6 mm/10 a的速率减少;近15 a来,冬、春季降水量明显减少,夏、秋季10.0 mm以下降水日数明显减少,25.0 mm以上降水日数明显增加。以1986年为界的气候变暖前后25.1～50.0 mm级别的降水日数夏季和年增加的显著性概率分别达到了5%和1%,降水频率分布呈现向高级别降水量增加的变化趋势。     

1961-2005年宁夏极端降水事件变化趋势分析

 利用1961-2005年宁夏逐日降水量资料,将降水量划分为9个级别,分析了宁夏45 a来各级别降水日数的变化趋势。结果表明：年降水量以平均3.6 mm/10 a的速率减少;近15 a来,冬、春季降水量明显减少,夏、秋季10.0 mm以下降水日数明显减少,25.0 mm以上降水日数明显增加。以1986年为界的气候变暖前后25.1～50.0 mm级别的降水日数夏季和年增加的显著性概率分别达到了5%和1%,降水频率分布呈现向高级别降水量增加的变化趋势。