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Understanding the seasonal behaviour of a subtropical forest and its inter-annual variation is crucial to understanding and monitoring its ecosystem function in the context of global warming. Based on the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Enhanced Vegetation Index dataset, a wavelet transform method was used to investigate the inter-annual variations of vegetation phenology in a subtropical mountain and hill region in Fujian, China, during 2001-2010. The results show a distinct inter-annual variation of vegetation phenology related to climate variability even if most areas presented non-significant trends. The start dates significantly advanced and end dates delayed in 2003 and 2008, due to anomalously warm conditions. There was generally a gradient of increasing start dates, and earlier end dates of vegetation growing season, due to colder temperatures at higher altitudes. However, the altitudinal phenology relationship also depends on its corresponding rainfall conditions. Earlier start dates were observed at higher altitudes during rainfall deficit years such as 2008, which coincides with relatively abundant rainfall at higher altitudes. This paper reveals that vegetation phenology was coupled with altitudinal gradient, with distinct responses at different combinations of alternate temperature and precipitation conditions variability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global warming tends to be the major characteristics of the dramatic global climate change. To deal with these changes, the impact of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emission on Chinese future economic and social development has to be assessed. In this paper, a Regional Integrated model of Climate and the Economy (RICE), which is well known and accepted widely, has been used for Chinese economic assessment of climate change after introduction, assimilation and verification. Based on a sensitivity analysis of technical parameters in the RICE model and constrained targets proposed for energy saving and emissions reduction technological advance programs of China from 2000 to 2050, the economic impact of the programs is examined. The results indicate that when technology advances, Chinese CO2 emission, climate loss, and the growth rate of atmospheric CO2 concentration and temperature will all decrease. It is assumed that in 2010, the CO2 emission is 20% lower than in 2005, CO2 emission in 2050 would only double the level in 2000, the accumulative CO2 emission would be decreased by 12.4 GtC, and the atmospheric CO2 concentration and temperature in 2050 would reduce by 35 GtC and 0.04°C respectively from 2000 to 2050. The accumulative climate loss from 2000 to 2050 will drop down by 4.6 billion dollar, which only accounts for 6% of the global total benefits. However, the economic benefit the developed countries will obtain is 10 times that for China under such a technological advance scenario. The decrease of the CO2 emission control rate is 1% in cooperation policy while 4.6% in non-cooperation policy, which would relieve China's burden in the control of CO2 total emission and thereby benefit China in participation of the international cooperation for CO2 emission reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies interdecadal variations of heat waves and sultry weather (HW&SW) in Beijing City by using climatological data gathered from 1940-2000. In general, HW&SW decreased during the 1940s-1970s and increased during the 1970s-1990s. Although variation trends in the number of HW&SW days coincide with air temperature variations, the greatest number of HW&SW days occurred during the 1940s rather than during the much hotter 1990s (which had an average 1.0°C higher air temperature than during the 1940s). The synoptic situations of HW&SW and the correlation analysis between HW&SW occurrences and the Western Pacific Subtropical High (WPSH) index seem to indicate that HW&SW days during the 1990s should exceed those during the 1940s; however, that is not the case. Post-1980s interdecadal variations of the Urban Dry Island (UDI) effect in Beijing City were analyzed in order to explain this inconsistent phenomenon. Our results show that, while the probability of HW&SW occurrences in Beijing City should have been greater due to global warming and increasing summer Urban Heat Island (UHI) intensity, the UDI effect is magnified by rapid urbanization. In addition, the physical comfort index is more sensitive to relative humidity under high temperature conditions. Therefore, the occurrence of HW&SW days during the 1990s is partially offset by the enhanced UDI in Beijing City. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coral reefs worldwide are becoming increasingly and detrimentally impacted upon by a variety of factors including significant climate changes, such as global warming and increased El Niño-Southern Oscillation activity. Generally, the persistence of coral reefs, especially at low-latitudes, is governed, in part, by sea surface temperatures not exceeding the critical limit (∼30°C) at which mass mortality can occur. Thus, it is thought that corals living at high-latitudes (i.e., currently cooler sea surface temperatures) will likely respond more favourably to hypothesized future temperature increases than corals living at low-latitudes (i.e., currently warmer sea surface temperatures). Consequently, high-latitude coral communities may have the potential to act as regions of refugia for many coral species in the face of potential future global warming. The Daya Bay (22°31'-22°50'N), northern South China Sea, contains several high-latitude non-reefal coral communities and represents one of the most northerly distributions of scleractinian corals within the region. Significantly, Daya Bay has experienced dramatic warming in both air and sea surface temperatures throughout the past 50 years. In this paper, we analyze 25 years of change in the Daya Bay coral communities, based both on historic surveys and our latest 2006-2008 regional ecological surveys. Our results suggest that, contrary to predictions, there have been significant declines in coral cover within the Daya Bay during the past 25 years (i.e., 76.6% coral cover in 1983/1984 to only 15.3% coral cover by 2008). Such changes also reflect a significant shift in the most abundant coral species, from Acropora pruinosa to Favites abdita. Most of the modern coral communities became established between 15 and 30 years ago, corresponding to a period of increased winter sea surface temperature. However, very few colonies have become established within the last 15 years, despite a more intense period of warming. By taking into account additional factors, we hypothesize that direct anthropogenic impacts, rather than climatic events, have both restricted the development, and drove the decline, of Daya Bay coral communities in the last 15 years. The Daya Bay has also been subjected to occasional extreme cold events during the past 50 years, with the most recent occurring in early 2008 (13 January-13 February). During the 2008 cold event, the lowest air temperature reaches only 6.6°C, and the mean sea surface temperature for February fall to <14°C, including six continuous days at 12.3°C. Significantly, the sea surface temperatures fall below the hypothesized critical lower temperature threshold (∼13°C) that commonly leads to mass mortality in scleractinian coral communities. Surprisingly, our coral community surveys, conducted both before (August 2007) and after (late February 2008) the extreme 2008 cold event, demonstrate that the Daya Bay coral ecosystems are barely impacted upon during the cold period. Those observations suggest that the Daya Bay scleractinian coral communities have developed adaptations to low sea surface temperatures. Overall, our data support the hypothesis that high-latitude coral communities, such as Daya Bay, have the potential to act as areas of refugia for scleractinian corals in the advent of potential future global warming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the statistics of faults in a transmission and distribution networks in central China, unveils long-term autocorrelation and power law distribution of power system faults, which indicates that power system fault has self-organized criticality (SOC) feature. The conclusion is consistent with the power systems data in 2008 with ice storm present. Since power systems cover large areas, climate is the key factor to its safety and stability, In-depth analysis shows that the SOC of atmosphere system contributes much to that of power system faults. Extreme climate will be more intense and frequent with global warming, it will have more and more impact upon power systems. The SOC feature of power system faults is utilized to develop approaches to facilitate power systems adaptation to climate variation in an economical and efficient way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is considerable interest in the potential impact of climate change on wind energy in China. The climate change of near-surface wind energy potential in China under the background of global warming and its association with anthropogenic land-use changes are investigated by calculating the difference in surface wind speeds between the NCEPINCAR reanalysis data and the observations since the re- analysis dataset contains the influence of large-scale climate changes due to greenhouse gases, it is less sensitive to regional surface processes associated with land types. The surface wind data in this study consist of long-term observations from 604 Chinese Roution Meteorological Stations and the NCEPINCAR reanalysis data from 1960-1999. The results suggest that the observed mean wind speeds signif icantly weakened and the near-surface wind power trended downward due to urbanization and other land-use changes in the last 40 years. The mean wind energy weakened by -3.84 W•m-2 per decade due to the influence of anthropogenic land-use change, which is close to the observed climate change (-4.51 W•m-2/1 0 a). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies revealed the double-peak mode (DPM) in South China precipitation, corresponding to the two stages in the rainy season, i.e. the first rainy stage (FRS) and the second rainy stage (SRS). But observations in recent two decades show that the DPM has changed to a single-peak mode (SPM). Both the precipitation amount and the heavy rainfall event frequency enhanced significantly in the gap between the FRS and the SRS in 1991–2010, compared to those in 1961-1990. This change can be linked to the effects of the global warming. During the warmer period, the July sea surface temperature over the western Pacific has greater increases than that over the central and eastern Pacific, especially west of 140°E. It may generate more tropical cyclones (TCs) in the inshore areas and then more typhoon rainfall over South China. On the other hand, the increments of the air temperature over the East Asian continent are greater than those of the SST over the western Pacific under the global warming, which enlarges the land-ocean temperature/pressure contrast and leads to a trend of the earlier onset dates of the Asian summer monsoon (ASM) in recent two decades. Then, the earlier ASM will facilitate the western Pacific subtropical high (WPSH) to retreat earlier from the South China Sea and enhance the convective precipitation in South China between the FRS and the SRS. Also, due to the warmer ocean, the WPSH locates more westward in July, and more moisture will be transported to South China from the southwest side to the WPSTH. All these influences favor a remarkably increasing precipitation in the gap in the warmer period and changes the seasonal cycle from double-peak mode to single-peak mode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses the decadal changes in winter precipitation and extreme precipitation in a warming environment in China. The results show that, together with a trend of winter warming in China, winter precipitation and extreme precipitation in the region are also increasing. In addition, concurrent with the decadal warming shift that occurred in the mid-1980s, precipitation and extreme precipitation both increased significantly. Quantitative analysis shows that precipitation and extreme precipitation increased at rates of 9.7% and 22.6% per 1°C of surface warming in China. This rate of precipitation increase is greater than the global mean, which indicates that precipitation in China is highly sensitive to climate warming and further highlights the importance of studying regional responses to climate warming. The fact that extreme precipitation is increasing at a higher rate than precipitation implies that winter precipitation in China will increasingly be of more extreme type in the context of global warming, which could partly explain why there have recently been a number of record-breaking extreme snowfall events in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on observations of the equilibrium line altitude (ELA) of the Qiyi Glacier in the Qilian Mountain, we established a statistical model between ELA and its major influencing factors, warm season air temperature (air temperature averages for September, July and August) and cold season precipitation (total precipitation in the period January through March). Warm season air temperature was the leading climatic factor influencing ELA variations. The glacier ELA ascends (descends) 172 m when warm season air temperature increases (decreases) by 1°C, and ascends (descends) 62 m when cold season precipitation decreases (increases) by 10%. In the period 1958-2008, the glacier ELA showed a general increasing trend, ascending 230 m and reaching its highest altitude in 2006 at 5131 m a.s.l., close to the glacier summit. If future climate is similar to that in the period 2001-2008, the Qiyi Glacier will not stabilize until it retreats by 2.08 km. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM) was a transient episode of global warming, associated with massive atmospheric greenhouse gas input that occurred at the Paleocene/Eocene boundary. Biostratigraphic and isotope stratigraphic studies indicate that the PETM event is well documented in the marl deposits of the Yuhuangding section in the Nanyang Basin, Central China, with a carbon isotope negative excursion of ~6.1‰ within 19-m-thick marl deposits. This is the highest resolution record 13 of the PETM so far found in the world. The PETM event was triggered within 2-cm-thick marl sediments, with a decrease of δ13C (stable carbon isotope ratio) from -3.2‰ to -5.2‰, suggesting a massive methane hydrate release for a transient period that was possibly caused by a catastrophic event. A comparison between marine and terrestrial records indicates a "Three-Phase Model" 13 for the PETM event. Initially there is a rapid negative excursion in the δ13C record, followed by a slowly decreasing trend, and then a gradual positive recovery, corresponding respectively to a rapid dissociation of oceanic methane hydrate, followed by a slow release of methane and then the consumption of the released methane. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a consequence of recent global warming and its social impact, regional climate change is attracting an increasing amount of attention from scientists. A May-July temperature proxy extending back to 1836 was developed from tree-ring width of Chinese pine (Pinus tabulaeformis Carr.) found in the middle Lüliang Mountains, northern China. Correlations with climatic data from six nearby meteorological stations range from -0.58 to -0.65, indicating a strong response of tree-ring index to May-July mean temperatures, which were subsequently reconstructed. The reconstruction captures 45% (F=38.474, P<0.001) of the regional variance in the instrumental data over the calibration period 1955-2003. Reconstructed warm and cold periods were verified by additional temperature reconstructions based on tree-ring data from northern China. In addition, the reconstruction was significantly correlated with May-July mean temperatures from 13 other meteorological stations in northern China, suggesting that our reconstruction is also representative of north-central China. The warming trend during the second half of the 20th century is seen in the reconstruction, but only the 1994-2002 mean temperature seems unprecedented over the whole reconstructed period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global surface temperature has dramatically increased in the past decades. It is critical to evaluate such a change using appropriate approaches. The previous studies for assessment of the change usually used overall trends of temperature series (i.e. slopes of simple linear regression of temperature versus year based on a least-square analysis) for entire study period. Temperature trends, however, differ among different periods, i.e. there are often breakpoints in the temperature series. Therefore, the overall linear trend of a temperature series may conceal some of the temporal characteristics of the temperature change. To precisely characterize the temporal and spatial patterns of air temperature change in China, we analyze the annual mean temperature series between the year of 1961-2004 for 536 meteorological stations across China, using piecewise linear regression approach. We found remarkable breakpoints in the annual mean temperature during the study period across the country. The annual mean temperature started to increase in 1984 at a rate of 0.058°C/a at the country level. The year when warming started appeared to be gradually later from the north to the south: temperature increased since the 1970s in the north (north of 40°N), and did not rise until the 1980s in most areas of the south (south of 40°N), with warming starting in 1983 in the Tibetan Plateau. The trends in annual mean temperatures showed a large spatial heterogeneity across China: a relatively small rising with a rate of 0.025-0.05°C/a in the Sichuan Basin, Central China and South China; the greatest increase in some parts of northwest China (i.e. Xinjiang) with up to a rate of 0.1°C/a; and rising at a rate of >0.05°C/a for most regions of the country. The feedbacks of cold waves and snow may be responsible for such regional differences in the timing and rates of warming in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have used the China Homogenized Historic Temperature dataset and some long-term station series of the neighbor countries from CRUTEM3, a 5°×5° gridded dataset of monthly mean temperature since 1900, to provide a 107-year record of surface temperature trends and variability. We derived a comprehensive set of uncertainty estimates to accompany the data: measurement and sampling errors, uncertainties in temperature bias estimates, and uncertainties arising from limited observational coverage on large-scale averages have all been estimated. We reanalysed the temperature changes during the period of record. The best estimates of trends for 1900--2006 with uncertainties at 95% confidence range are about 0.09±0.017°C/decade for the year as a whole, and 0.14±0.021°C/decade, 0.11±0.021°C/decade, 0.04±0.017°C/decade, and 0.07±0.017°C/decade for winter, spring, summer and autumn respectively. For 1954--2006, the trends for annual, winter, spring, summer and autumn are: 0.26±0.032°C/decade, 0.35±0.046°C/decade, 0.25±0.051°C/decade, 0.16±0.037°C/decade and 0.22±0.055°C/decade. Winter saw the most significant warming trend in both 1900--2006 and 1954--2006, while during the most recent period (the satellite era, 1979--2006), all the seasons show similar warming trends: 0.45±0.13°C/decade, 0.51±0.11°C/decade, 0.52±0.16°C/decade, 0.37±0.10°C/decade and 0.50±0.16°C/decade for annual, winter, spring, summer and autumn. Trends arising from urbanization have been evaluated as less than 5% of the total warming trend for 1951--2001, so this bias was not removed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global surface temperature shows an increasing trend over the past 100 years. Anthropogenic and natural factors have been invoked to explain this warming, but their relative contribution and the spatial variability remain controversial. Based on a 2650-year temperature record from a stalagmite near Beijing, we explore the possible impacts of human activity on the warm season temperature in Beijing since the industrial era using the method of singular spectrum analysis (SSA). The results suggest that the warm season temperature in Beijing under the natural forcing should have an overall decreasing trend for the past 130 years (1870 to 2000 AD) with an amplitude of 0.45±0.84°C, while the instrumental record and stalagmite data show an increase of 1.08°C. These imply that human activity would have caused an increase in the warm season temperature of Beijing for about 1.53±0.84°C compared to its natural trends, from 1870 AD to 2000 AD. Our results also suggest that anthropogenic forcing began to significantly influence the temperature since 1870 AD, and the effect further intensified since 1915 AD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Impacts of climate warming on heating energy consumption and southern boundaries of severe cold and cold regions of China in the past 20 years are analyzed by using daily and monthly average temperature data from 590 weather stations in China and based on regulations of Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning Design Rules (GB50019-2003) and Thermal Design Rules for Civil Building (GB50175-93) (China National Standard). The contribution of climate warming to coal saving for heating during cold seasons in major cities is calculated according to indices of coal consumption for heating in major cities during cold seasons defined in Energy Conservation Design Standard for New Heating Residential Buildings (JCJ26-95). Comparing with the period before 1980, southern boundaries of severe cold and cold regions shift toward north up to 2 degrees in latitude since the mid-1980s. Theoretically, climate warming could contribute to 5%-10% coal savings for heating since the mid-1980s in major cities, and even more since the mid-1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meta-analysis is a quantitative synthetic research method that statistically integrates results from individual studies to find common trends and differences. With increasing concern over global change, meta-analysis has been rapidly adopted in global change research. Here, we introduce the methodologies, advantages and disadvantages of meta-analysis, and review its application in global climate change research, including the responses of ecosystems to global warming and rising CO2 and O3 concentrations, the effects of land use and management on climate change and the effects of disturbances on biogeochemistry cycles of ecosystem. Despite limitation and potential misapplication, meta-analysis has been demonstrated to be a much better tool than traditional narrative review in synthesizing results from multiple studies. Several methodological developments for research synthesis have not yet been widely used in global climate change researches such as cumulative meta-analysis and sensitivity analysis. It is necessary to update the results of meta-analysis on a given topic at regular intervals by including newly published studies. Emphasis should be put on multi-factor interaction and long-term experiments. There is great potential to apply meta-analysis to global climate change research in China because research and observation networks have been established (e.g. ChinaFlux and CERN), which create the need for combining these data and results to provide support for governments' decision making on climate change. It is expected that meta-analysis will be widely adopted in future climate change research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Annual mean discharge data of the five large rivers in the exorheic region of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau from 1956 to 2000 are analyzed for trends with the Mann-Kendall nonparametric trend test. The results reveal that though in general no increasing trends exist in the total river discharges, significant regional differences of river discharge exist, reflecting the decreasing trends of discharge in the Yellow River and the Tongtian River (upper Changjiang River), an increasing trend in Yalong River, and inverted change in the Lancang River and Yarlung Zangbo River. Based on analyses of the seasonal discharge, it is found that climatic change had a significant effect on the seasonal variation of river discharge in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. In spring (from March to May) the discharge increased significantly, especially in the source area of the Yellow River. Together with the analyses on data of the mean temperature in the Northern Hemisphere and climatic data within the river basins, the relationship between discharges and mean temperature of the Northern Hemisphere is explored, which indicates that there is no increase in the stream discharge in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau with global warming. It is probably the increasing evaporation, caused by rising temperature that offsets the hydrological effect of increasing precipitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By analyses of the dust layers in the Malan ice core from the northern Tibetan Plateau, it was found that dirty ratio in this core might be a good proxy for dust event frequency. The variations in the dirty ratio displayed a decrease trend over the past 200 years, which implies that dust events became less frequent during the study period. The decrease trend in the variations in dust event frequency might be caused mostly by the natural processes, including increasing precipitation and weakening westerly which might be related with global warming. Furthermore, significant negative correlation was found between the dirty ratio and δ18O in the Malan ice core. This is highly important for studying the effect of atmospheric dust on climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]