The apparent temperature (APT), or human-perceived temperature, is commonly defined as a function of the surface air temperature (SAT), vapour pressure (or humidity) and wind speed. This paper demonstrates that the APT over China, as revealed by daily station-observed data, has generally increased faster than the SAT during summertime in the past 50 years (1968−2017). The rate of increase in APT was significantly faster than that of SAT in 60.1% of stations, and the difference between the average Chinawide APT and SAT was 0.11°C decade −1. This phenomenon is occurring nationwide, but it is more intense over western, northeastern and eastern coastal China. The more rapid increasing trend in APT indicates that human beings actually experience surplus heat stress under a certain change in SAT, and the increased SAT explains 67.0% of the average APT warming for the country, contributing to the change in the base APT. Apart from the increasing SAT, a decrease in surface wind speed and an increase in surface vapour pressure have also been observed, contributing to 21.6% of the increase in APT and explaining the remaining 11.4%, respectively.
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