Climate in mainland China can be divided into the monsoon region in the southeast and
the westerly region in the northwest as well as the intercross zone, i.e., the monsoon northernmost
marginal active zone that is oriented from Southwest China to the upper Yellow River, North China,
and Northeast China. In the three regions, dry-wet climate changes are directly linked to the
interaction of the southerly monsoon flow on the east side of the Tibetan Plateau and the westerly
flow on the north side of the Plateau from the inter-annual to inter-decadal timescales. Some basic
features of climate variability in the three regions for the last half century and the historical
hundreds of years are reviewed in this paper.
In the last half century, an increasing trend of summer precipitation associated with the enhancing
westerly flow is found in the westerly region from Xinjiang to northern parts of North China and
Northeast China. On the other hand, an increasing trend of summer precipitation along the Yangtze
River and a decreasing trend of summer precipitation along the monsoon northernmost marginal active
zone are associated with the weakening monsoon flow in East Asia.
Historical documents are widely distributed in the monsoon region for hundreds of years and natural
climate proxies are constructed in the non-monsoon region, while two types of climate proxies can be
commonly found over the monsoon northernmost marginal active zone. In the monsoon region, dry-wet
variation centers are altered among North China, the lower Yangtze River, and South China from one
century to another. Dry or wet anomalies are firstly observed along the monsoon northernmost marginal
active zone and shifted southward or southeastward to the Yangtze River valley and South China in
about a 70-year timescale. Severe drought events are experienced along the monsoon northernmost
marginal active zone during the last 5 centuries. Inter-decadal dry-wet variations are depicted by
natural proxies for the last 4--5 centuries in several areas over the non-monsoon region.
Some questions, such as the impact of global warming on dry-wet regime changes in China, complex
interactions between the monsoon and westerly flows in Northeast China, and the integrated multi-proxy
analysis throughout all of China, are proposed. 相似文献