Daily precipitation changes in the semi-arid region over northern China |
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Authors: | Dao-Yi Gong Pei-Jun Shi Jing-Ai Wang |
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Affiliation: | a Laboratory of Environmental Change and Natural Disaster, Institute of Resources Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China;b Department of Resources and Environmental Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China |
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Abstract: | The semi-arid area in northern China is an agro-pastoral transition zone. The environment there is sensitive to climate variation, particularly to precipitation change. Daily precipitation records of 30-gauge stations from May to September during 1956–2000 are analysed in this study. The precipitation amounts show only slightly decreasing trends; however, some aspects of the rainfall characteristics display significant changes. Compared to the 1950s, rainy days have been reduced by about 8 days in the 1990s. Significant change is observed in the number of days when there is light rain (<10 mm day−1). The days with light rain also show a significant tendency toward a stronger intensity, whereas those days with moderate and above moderate rains do not. At the same time, the long duration precipitation (3days) event is found to decrease remarkably with a linear trend of −5.6% per 10 years. In contrast, the frequency of long dry spells (10 consecutive days without rainfall) is becoming more frequent at a rate of 7.2% per 10 years. Taking 30 stations as a whole the maximum daily rainfall displays no evident trend. But the median of the maximums shows a step-like drop beginning in 1979 and the low values are notable until the early 1990s. This is coincident with the large-scale climate regime shift over East Asia, probably suggesting a response of regional daily precipitation extremes due to the change of the East Asian summer monsoon system. |
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Keywords: | Semi-arid region Northern China Daily precipitation |
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