Changing Trends of Daily Temperature Extremes with Different Intensities in China

By comparing two sets of quality-controlled daily temperature observation data with and without the inhomogeneity test and adjustment from 654 stations in China during 1956–2004 and 1956–2010, impacts of inhomogeneity on changing trends of four percentile temperature extreme indices, including occurrences of cold days, cold nights, warm days, and warm nights with varying intensities, were discussed. It is found that the inhomogeneity affected the long-term trends averaged over extensive regions limitedly. In order to minimize the inhomogeneity impact, the 83 stations identified with obvious inhomogeneity impacts were removed, and an updated analysis of changing trends of the four temperature extreme indices with varying intensities during 1956–2010 was conducted. The results show that annual occurrences of both cold nights and cold days decreased greatly while those of warm nights and warm days increased significantly during the recent 20 years. The more extreme the event is, the greater the magnitude of changing trends for the temperature extreme index is. An obvious increasing trend was observed in annual occurrences of cold days and cold nights in the recent four years. The magnitude of changing trends of warm extreme indices was greater than that of cold extreme indices, and it was greater in northern China than in southern China. Trends for summer occurrence of cold days were not significant. Decreasing trends of occurrences of both cold nights and cold days were the greatest in December, January, and February (DJF) but the least in June, July, and August (JJA), while increasing trends of warm nights were the greatest in JJA. Cold nights significantly decreased from 1956 to 1990, and then the decreasing trend considerably weakened. The decreasing trend also showed an obvious slowdown in recent years for occurrence of cold days. However, increasing trends of warm nights and warm days both have been accelerated continuously since the recent decades. Further analysis presents that the evolution of the trends for occurrences of the four temperature extreme indices was dominated by the changes in northern China.