Why was the arid and semiarid northwest China getting wetter in the recent decades?

Peng, Dongdong; Zhou, Tianjun

doi:10.1002/2016jd026424

Cited by 203 publications

(180 citation statements)

References 79 publications

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“…On average, the mean trend of the stations in ASRC is 0.06 events decade −1 . This finding agrees with the increasing trend in the convergence of water flux (the sum of horizontal advection and wind convergence terms) over Northwest China during the past decades (Peng and Zhou, ). On the one hand, the increased downward longwave radiation in this area favors the evaporation and increases the atmospheric moisture; on the other hand, central Asia is covered by an anomalous cyclone and horizontal vorticity advection, thereby leading to a wetting tendency (Peng and Zhou, ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Changes of concurrent drought and heat extremes in the arid and semi‐arid regions of China during 1961–2014

Luo

2019

Atmospheric Science Letters

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Arid and semi‐arid regions of China (ASRC) are increasingly threatened by drought. Especially when drought and heat extremes coincide, the resultant impact would be even more harmful to human society and the natural environment. This study investigates the spatio‐temporal changes in concurrent drought and heat extremes in ASRC during 1961–2014. Summer heat extremes quantified by hot day (HD), warm night (WN), daytime (DHW), and nighttime heatwave (NHW) are examined. On average, the concurrent nighttime events (concurrent drought‐WN and drought‐NHW) increases by 2.7 times faster than daytime ones (concurrent drought‐HD and drought‐DHW), and they appear more frequently in eastern than western ASRC. We also find that all four types of concurrent events have been significantly increased over the past decades. Compared to daytime (i.e., HD and DHW), the concurrent events at nighttime (i.e., WN and NHW) increased even more rapidly. During the study period, concurrent drought‐DHW (drought‐NHW) climbed up at the rate of 0.03 (0.08) events decade−1 and concurrent drought‐HD (drought‐WN) increased by 0.17 (0.45) days decade−1. Geographically, eastern ASRC exhibited a more pronounced increasing trend than the west. Given the increasing threats of concurrent events, we suggest that more attention should be paid to these compound events in future climate change studies.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As suggested by previous studies (Peng and Zhou, ; Wang et al ., ; Liu et al ., ), Northwest China experienced a wetting trend during the past decades. Our analysis confirmed this trend by showing that most areas of ASRC experience a wetter summer climate.…”

Section: Conclusion and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Changes of concurrent drought and heat extremes in the arid and semi‐arid regions of China during 1961–2014

Luo

2019

Atmospheric Science Letters

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“…The aggregation according to precipitation characteristics may lead to attribution of changes to anthropogenic forcing even be robust for smaller areas causing robustness of trends in extreme precipitation for dry regions (Donat et al, ). For the precipitation increase in dry regions of China, previous studies have shown that the changes in moisture and circulation have simultaneous positive contributions to the wetting trend in dry regions (Huang et al, ; Li, Chen, et al, ; Peng & Zhou, ). The thermodynamic contribution to the wetting trend is also induced by the increased specific humidity, which is associated with enhanced evaporation, and the dynamic contribution is dominated by an anomalous cyclone over central Asia (Peng & Zhou, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Changes in Extreme Precipitation Over Dry and Wet Regions of China During 1961‐2014

Han

et al. 2019

JGR Atmospheres

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Changes in extreme precipitation differ among regions (e.g., dry and wet regions), causing different adverse effects on human life, social economy, and natural ecosystems on a warming planet. In this study, we use the 95th percentile‐based threshold to define extreme precipitation. The spatiotemporal changes in extreme precipitation and temperature‐extreme precipitation scaling relationship between dry and wet regions of mainland China during 1961‐2014 are analyzed using two gridded data sets of precipitation and temperature observations. Extreme precipitation increased faster in dry regions (3.9% frequency and 2.8% relative intensity per decade) compared to wet regions (2.5% frequency and 2.1% relative intensity per decade) over the past 54 years. Despite the negative regression relationship between mean precipitation and temperature in wet regions, extreme precipitation has a positive relationship with temperature. The regression coefficient in relative intensity against temperature change is 6% per °C in wet regions. The frequency increases significantly (p < 0.01) faster as temperature increases in wet regions (11.1% per °C) compared with dry regions (6.9% per °C). These results suggest that precipitation extremes increase for both dry and wet regions, and faster trends are observed in dry regions. However, the same magnitude of warming causes more extreme precipitation in wet regions. Therefore, more extreme precipitation in future may raise the risk of flooding in both dry and wet regions, particularly for wet regions, due to the stronger relative intensity and faster increases against warming.

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“…Precipitation and the frequency of extreme precipitation have increased in the NTM at a rate of 11.3% annually (He et al, 2003). Other areas in the Central Asia arid area have experienced slight decreases in average annual precipitation (Gessner et al, 2013;Lioubimtseva & Henebry, 2009) but a significant increasing trend in summer at a rate of 20.78% (Gessner et al, 2013;Lioubimtseva & Henebry, 2009;Peng et al, 2018;Peng & Zhou, 2017). Horton et al found that the dynamic exchange of heat and water to regional climate change is largely dependent on or potentially related to land cover change processes and land management measures (Horton et al, 2015;Qu et al, 2013;Y Zhou et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Numerical Simulation of the Irrigation Effects on Surface Fluxes and Local Climate in Typical Mountain‐Oasis‐Desert Systems in the Central Asia Arid Area

et al. 2019

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In this study, the Weather Research and Forecasting model was coupled with an improved Noah land surface model (WRF‐Noah) where dynamic flood and drip irrigation processes were implemented firstly. We simulated the different irrigation effects on surface water‐heat processes in a typical mountain‐oasis‐desert system in Central Asia for both wet and drought years, respectively, using the modified WRF‐Noah. The modified WRF‐Noah model can dynamically generate amounts of irrigation in agreement with actual values. The statistically significant decrease in the root mean square error and increase in the Pearson correlation coefficient for the 2‐m temperature (T2), relative humidity (RH), latent heat flux (LE), and precipitation suggest that the modified WRF‐Noah model was improved by implementing irrigation processes. During the irrigation season, flood and drip irrigation decreased the average sensible heat flux by −80.69 and −50.50 W/m2 and T2 by 1.09 and 0.82 °C over the irrigated area and increased LE by 88.47 and 66.70 W/m2 and RH by 6.23% and 4.65%, respectively. Throughout the domain, flood irrigation had equivalent or slightly weaker effects on near‐surface temperature and humidity due to the smaller irrigated area. Both flood and drip irrigation increased precipitation throughout the domain, especially in the mountainous area, thereby accelerating the hydrological cycle in the mountain‐oasis‐desert system. The local oasis breeze circulation that plays a role in maintaining the oasis stability is still counteracted by the dominant background circulation even with irrigation processes. Thus, more effort should be exerted to maintain the future sustainability of the oasis.

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Why was the arid and semiarid northwest China getting wetter in the recent decades?

Cited by 203 publications

References 79 publications

Changes of concurrent drought and heat extremes in the arid and semi‐arid regions of China during 1961–2014

Changes of concurrent drought and heat extremes in the arid and semi‐arid regions of China during 1961–2014

Changes in Extreme Precipitation Over Dry and Wet Regions of China During 1961‐2014

Numerical Simulation of the Irrigation Effects on Surface Fluxes and Local Climate in Typical Mountain‐Oasis‐Desert Systems in the Central Asia Arid Area

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