Spatial and Temporal Variations in Precipitation Amount, Frequency, Intensity, and Persistence in China, 1973–2016

Abstract

In this paper, we examined the spatial and temporal variations in precipitation amount, frequency, and intensity in China based on daily precipitation data from 2050 weather stations from 1973 to 2016. We used two Markov chain parameters to quantify the wet persistence and dry persistence that characterizes the temporal pattern of wet and dry days, respectively. We found that China’s annual precipitation changed little from 1973 to 2016, but varied dramatically from 524 to 688 mm yr−1, with an average of 592 mm yr−1, during this period. China’s precipitation frequency, the number of days with effective precipitation (>0.1 mm day−1) in a year, significantly decreased at a rate of 0.9 days decade−1 from 1973 to 2016, but precipitation intensity significantly increased at a rate of 0.12 mm day−1 decade−1 during the same period. Of the changes in China’s total precipitation amount, precipitation intensity played a dominant role, contributing 70.8%, while precipitation frequency contributed the remaining 29.2%. Little change was found in the wet persistence in China over the period of 1973–2016, but the dry persistence significantly increased with an average increasing trend of 1.62 × 10−3 probability per decade during the same period, and no significant correlations were found between these two variables. China’s precipitation also changed nonuniformly in space, with increasing trends in precipitation amount, frequency, intensity, and wet persistence in western and northeastern China but decreasing trends in the Sichuan basin, northeast of Inner Mongolia, and the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region.

Extreme Summer Precipitation Events in China and Their Changes during 1982 ~ 2019

“…From Figure 3(B), it can be found that, the amount of rain day (precipitation >1 mm) has significantly changed in 38% China's area, mainly increased in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (west China) and decreased in northwest China. This suggests that the precipitation increase in western China is due to the increase in both precipitation frequency and intensity, which is consistent with the results of Shang et al (2019). Figures 3(C) and 3(d) show the trends of RX1day and RX5day, where 18% and 16% of grid points in China have a statistically significant change trend.…”

Characteristics and related mechanisms of the persistent extreme precipitation in August 2020 over Western China

“…In particular, numerous studies on summer precipitation changes in China have detected interdecadal variations since the late 1970s (Wang et al, 2017, Ma et al, 2021. The annual precipitation has increased significantly in southeast, northeast, and western China and decreased from southwest China to northeast Inner Mongolia during the past decades (Shang et al, 2019). Autumn precipitation and rainy days in WC exhibited a significant reduction before the 1990s and increased after the 2000s (Yuan and Liu 2013;Wang et al, 2015;, but the precipitation intensity has been enhanced (Wang et al, 2015;Zhang et al, 2019).…”

Intraseasonal evolution and climatic characteristics of hourly precipitation during the rainy season in the Poyang Lake Basin, China

“…Although no significant change has been observed in the long-term trend of annual precipitation in China, the interdecadal, interannual, and regional variations are remarkable (Zhai et al 2005;Shang et al 2019). Regionally, extreme heavy rainfall has shown a significant trend of increase and light rainfall has shown a significant trend of decrease over central eastern China.…”