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Drought seriously endangers the development of agro‐pastoral ecotone in arid and semi‐arid regions. However, drought evolution characteristics of semi‐arid sandy grassland and its drivers are not well understood in the complex climate change context. Thus, in this paper, the revised standardized precipitation evaporation indices on one‐month (SPEI‐1) and growing‐season (SPEI‐6) scale, flash drought and dry spells (DS) were calculated as drought indicators, and the temporal variabilities and meteorological drivers of drought in Horqin Sandy Land during the growing period (April–September) from 2007 to 2021 were studied. The results showed that SPEI‐1 and SPEI‐6 exhibited negative trends and periodic change. This drought aggravation was manifested in increased grades and numbers of drought months. Flash droughts can occur every month during the growing season. And its occurrence was not only positively correlated with all drought events in frequency but also synchronized in time. The increased number of DS showed an asymmetrical shift towards 7‐day‐and‐longer DS. SPEI sensitivity to precipitation (P) was noticeably higher than to atmospheric evapotranspiration demand (AED) at both monthly and growing season scales. SPEI sensitivity to AED was modulated by P amounts, which was higher during low P period. Apart from the amounts of P and AED, their temporal variability also strongly determined how they affect the drought severity. P was also the main driver for flash drought and long DS, but AED with larger amount and higher variability is the reason for their aggravation. Our results demonstrate the complexity of drought intensification in semi‐arid sandy grasslands and highlight the important role of AED anomalies in it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hydrological projections provided by the outputs of Global Climate Models (GCMs) combining hydrological models include multi‐source uncertainties, which may challenge the formulation of relevant adaption and mitigation policies. In this paper, the overall uncertainty and the relative contribution of each uncertainty component were investigated for hydrological projections over 408 watersheds in China by using 3 shared socioeconomic pathway emission scenarios (SSP1‐2.6, SSP2‐4.5, and SSP5‐8.5), 21 GCMs, 8 bias correction methods, 4 hydrological models, and 2 sets of optimized hydrological model parameters. The results show that the total uncertainty (T) is mainly contributed by uncertainty related to global climate models (G), with the mean percentage ranging from 60.4 to 64.1%, followed by the interaction uncertainties among all components, with the mean percentage ranging from 22.0 to 26.4%. The uncertainty contribution of hydrological models (H) (6.1–9.4%) ranks third, followed by emission scenarios (S) (2.9–5.9%) and bias correction methods (B) (0.2–1.1%). The uncertainty contribution of the optimized hydrological model parameters (P) (0.2–0.3%) is almost negligible. In terms of spatial variability, the relative contribution of uncertainty related to global climate models (G) is the highest in the near future for northern China (67.5–70.6%) and in the far future for southern China (66.1–66.7%). However, it was found to be lower for the Tibetan Plateau and northwestern China (45.3–57.9%) in the near and far future. The relative contribution of hydrological model uncertainty is higher for southwestern and northwestern China and the Tibetan Plateau (7.2–19.5%) and lower for northern, eastern, and southern China (2.5–6.6%). This study highlights the importance of including multiple GCMs and hydrological models in hydrological impact studies to consider their overall uncertainty. The development of global climate models and hydrological models is still the best way to reduce the uncertainty of climate change impact studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The biases in the Global Circulation Models ( GCMs) are crucial for understanding future climate changes. Currently, most bias correction methodologies suffer from the assumption that model bias is stationary. This paper provides a non-stationary bias correction model, termed residual-based bagging tree ( RBT) model, to reduce simulation biases and to quantify the contributions of single models. Specifically, the proposed model estimates the residuals between individual models and observations, and takes the differences between observations and the ensemble mean into consideration during the model training process. A case study is conducted for 10 major river basins in Mainland China during different seasons. Results show that the proposed model is capable of providing accurate and stable predictions while including the non-stationarities into the modelling framework. Significant reductions in both bias and root mean squared error are achieved with the proposed RBT model, especially for the central and western parts of China. The proposed RBT model has consistently better performance in reducing biases when compared with the raw ensemble mean, the ensemble mean with simple additive bias correction, and the single best model for different seasons. Furthermore, the contribution of each single GCM in reducing the overall bias is quantified. The single model importance varies between 3.1% and 7.2%. For different future scenarios ( RCP 2.6, RCP 4.5, and RCP 8.5), the results from RBT model suggest temperature increases of 1.44, 2.59, and 4.71 °C by the end of the century, respectively, when compared with the average temperature during 1970-1999. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT High-resolution tree-ring records covering past centuries in the western Sichuan Plateau of China are scarce, yet essential for developing a complete understanding of the regional patterns of climate change for the Tibetan plateau. This paper presents a temperature reconstruction for the Wolong Natural Reserve of the western Sichuan Plateau based on a tree-ring width chronology of a cypress species ( Sabina saltuaria) endemic to the Tibetan plateau. The annual (prior October to current September) temperature reconstruction, which spans from 1840 to 2011, was developed using a linear regression model. The reconstruction explains 54.1% of the actual temperature variance during the calibration period from 1956 to 2010. The noteworthy warming periods of the reconstruction occurred between 1864-1882 and 1927-1960, while the most pronounced cold episodes were found between 1886-1926, 1788-1822, and 1961-1996. Spectral analysis revealed the existence of multi-decadal, decadal, and annual cycles that might correspond to the related cycles of Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, solar activity, and ENSO-type variability, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses projections of heavy rainfall events in China during the 21st century based on daily precipitation data from the Fourth Assessment Report's (AR4) Coupled General Circulation Models (CGCM). Results show that all three experimental scenarios (scenarios A2, A1B, and B1) project consistent changes in frequency and intensity of heavy rainfall at the end of 21st century. In the regions of Northeast China and North China, there are no significant changes in frequency but there are remarkable increases in intensity of heavy rainfall, indicating that enhanced intensity is the main contributor to increased ratios of heavy rainfall to total annual precipitation in these regions. In regions of the lower reaches of Yangtze River and South China, increases in the amount of heavy rainfall are closely associated with increased frequency and increased intensity. Projected frequencies of heavy rainfall at the end of 21st century increase by 30.9 ∼ 56.6% in the Yangtze River and 35.9 ∼ 50.2% in South China compared to the period of 1980-1999, and projected intensities increase by 1.0 ∼ 5.7% and 2.8 ∼ 6.3%, respectively. Additionally, the ratios of heavy rainfall to total annual precipitation increase by 2.3 ∼ 5.4% in the Yangtze River and 1.8 ∼ 3.8% in South China. The significant increases of heavy rainfall ratios indicate that as the climate warms, heavy rainfall events are expected to increase at rates that are much faster than increases in total precipitation amounts, indicating that China will experience increased amounts of flooding. These results are substantially consistent among the three IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) scenarios. The increased probability of heavy rainfall events in China is closely connected with increased transportation of water vapour from the Arabian Sea and the South China Sea. Additionally, atmosphere stratification has become increasingly unstable, which has provided a favorable background for the initiation of heavy rainfall at the end of the 21st century. Copyright © 2010 Royal Meteorological Society [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]