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Based on the data of five observed meteorological elements (temperature, precipitation, wind speed, sunshine duration, and relative humidity) from 22 stations, the paper investigated the climate variations in northern Xinjiang over the past 50 years. The analytical results showed that both the temperature and the precipitation have increased significantly (0.35 °C/10 y, 11.2 mm/10 y) during the period of 1960–2011. An abrupt change was detected to have occurred in 1986 for temperature and in 1987 for precipitation. Autumn was the season when the temperature increased most dramatically, and winter and autumn were the seasons when the precipitation increased most dramatically. The twenty years after 1990 were the warmest and wettest two decades of the past ∼50 years, but the warming and wetting paces have slowed down during the same period. The results also showed that the mean annual minimum temperature increased more dramatically than the mean annual maximum temperature, resulting in a greatly reduced diurnal range. The reasons or mechanisms for rising trend of temperature during the past 50 years and also for the faster rising rate of the temperature in northern Xinjiang and the adjacent areas have been reasonably explored in published literature. However, the reasons or mechanisms for the rising trend of the past 50-year precipitation in northern Xinjiang and the adjacent areas have not been reasonably explored. This wetting trend has not extended further to the surrounding areas including Republic of Mongolia, major part of North China, and five republics of the former Soviet Union, and the need is thus pressing to explore the reasons or mechanisms behind this relatively “localized” wetting trend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzed the data of temperature and precipitation in Turpan and Nantong, in the west and east of China, respectively, during the period of 1961 –2007 by linear groWh rate, moving average methods, Mann-Kendall nonparametric and moving Ttests. The result indicated that the annual average temperature in Turpan had a linear groWh rate of 0.42 °C/10 a, while the annual average temperature in Nantong had a linear tendency of 0.48 °C/10 a. The annual average maximum temperature in Turpan with linear groWh rate of 0.16 °C/10 a was lower than 0.56 °C/ 10 a of Nantong, and the annual average minimum temperature in Turpan with linear growh rate of 0.86 °C/10 a was higher than 0.70 °C/10 a of Nantong. The annual average temperature of Turpan increasing was 7 years earlier than Nantong. The annual average maximum temperature of Turpan increasing was 5 years later than Nantong. The annual average minimum temperature of Turpan increased as same as Nantong in 1986, but the curve showed different process completely. The abrupt change year of average temperature between Turpan and Nantong were same in 1996, and the abrupt change year of average maximum temperature of Turpan was 5 years later than Nantong. For precipitation, Turpan and Nantong had the same trend of increased and decreased. The reason of almost identical trend of temperature and precipitation between Turpan and Nantong may be urbanization and population increasing influencing climate change in a small area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]