Projected Changes in Temperature Extremes in China Using PRECIS

Abstract

Temperature extremes can cause disastrous impacts on ecological and social economic systems. China is very sensitive to climate change, as its warming rate exceeds that of the global mean level. This paper focused on the spatial and temporal changes of the temperature extremes characterized by the 95th percentile of maximum temperature (TX95), the 5th percentile of the minimum temperature (TN5), high-temperature days (HTD) and low-temperature days (LTD). The daily maximum and minimum temperatures generated by PRECIS under different Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) are used in the research. The results show that: (1) Model simulation data can reproduce the spatial distribution features of the maximum temperature (Tmax) and minimum temperature (Tmin) as well as that of the extreme temperature indices; (2) By the end of the 21st century (2070-2099), both the Tmax and Tmin are warmer than the baseline level in China and the eight sub-regions. However, there are regional differences in the asymmetrical warming features, as the Tmin warms more than the Tmax in the northern part of China and the Tibetan Plateau, while the Tmax warms more than the Tmin in the southern part of China; (3) The frequency of the warm extremes would become more usual, as the HTD characterized by the present-day threshold would increase by 106%, 196% and 346%, under RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively, while the cold extremes characterized by the LTD would become less frequent by the end of the 21st century, decreasing by 75%, 90% and 98% under RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively. The southern and eastern parts of the Tibetan Plateau respond sensitively to changes in both the hot and cold extremes, suggesting its higher likelihood to suffer from climate warming; (4) The intensity of the warm (cold) extremes would increase (decrease) significantly, characterized by the changes in the TX95 (TN5) by the end of the 21st century, and the magnitude of the increase in the TN5 is larger than that of the TX95 in the national mean value. The changes in both the TX95 and TN5 are larger under the higher versus weaker emission scenario, indicating that it is essential to reduce the GHG emissions and take adaptation measures in the future.

Analysis on the Changes of Agro-Meteorological Thermal Indices in Northeast China under RCP4.5 Scenario Using the PRECIS2.1

“…A series of climate scenarios with a horizontal resolution of 50 km generated from PRECIS had been used for the analysis of the average climate trend [25], changes of summer days, consecutive frost days and growing season length [26], heat wave frequency and duration [27] under SRES scenarios in the 21st century, as well as the changes of the 95th percentile of the maximum temperature, the 5th percentile of the minimum temperature, high-and low-temperature days [28], and lighting and thermal resources in the potential northward areas of winter wheat [29] (details in Table S1) under the RCP scenarios during the 21st century. In our paper, the latest version (PRECIS2.1) with a horizontal resolution of 25 km will be used to dissect AT10, PGS and FFP changes under the RCP4.5 scenario in the 21st century in Northeast China.…”

Assessments of future climate extremes in China by using high-resolution PRECIS 2.0 simulations

“…The number of rainstorm days to the south of the Huaihe River is mostly increasing, and to the north of the Huaihe River, the trend is to decrease (Chen et al 2010). China is also undergoing increasing weather and climate extreme events in terms of the numbers and frequencies (Ren et al 2011) and will experience much more hot extremes, less cold extremes and intensified extreme precipitation events by the end of the twenty-first century (Gao et al 2002;Zhang et al 2006;Ji and Kang 2015;Zhang et al 2017). Analyses of long-term meteorological station data showed that most parts of China have witnessed an increase in heat waves defined by the 90th percentile threshold of history record at frequencies of approximately 1 to 1.5 times per year (Ding et al 2010).…”

Evaluating the Sensitivity of Growing Degree Days as an Agro-Climatic Indicator of the Climate Change Impact: A Case Study of the Russian Far East

“…Secondly, to quantify climate changes caused by CO 2 and other trace gases, physical methods using numerous global climate models, such as three-dimensional general circulation models under different emissions scenarios, are applied to construct climate scenarios [8,45,[72][73][74][75][76]. Their main disadvantage is based on the ultra-complicated and complex character of the actual climate system and the inherent inability to construct a model that can be its perfect copy [8].…”

“…With the above in mind, synthetic scenarios are a useful tool to suggest the magnitude of future spatial and temporal climatic changes at a regional scope [8,[10][11][12]24,57,76,77]. Three warming scenarios +1, +2 and +3 • C are suggested for application, as they represent simulations of temperature changes in the regions under different emission scenarios based on the consensus of the World Climate Research Programme Coupled Model Intercomparison Project [1][2][3][4][5][72][73][74][75][76][78][79][80][81][82].…”