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Climate change has attracted significant attention due to its increasing impacts on various aspects of the world, and future climate projections are of vital importance for associated adaptation and mitigation, particularly at the regional scale. However, the skill level of the model projections over China in the past more than ten years remains unknown. In this study, we retrospectively investigate the skill of climate models within the Third (TAR), Fourth (AR4), and Fifth (AR5) Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for the near-term projections of near-surface (2 m) air temperature changes in China. Those models are revealed to be skillful in projecting the subsequent climatology and trend of the temperature changes in China during 2002-2018 from several to ten years ahead, with higher scores for the climatology than for the trend. The model projections display cold biases against observations in most of China, while the nationally averaged trend is overestimated by TAR models during 2002-2018 but underestimated by AR4 models during 2008-2018. For all emission scenarios, there is no obvious difference between the equal- and unequal-weighted averages based on the arithmetic averaging and reliability ensemble averaging method respectively, however the uncertainty range of projection is narrowed after weighting. The near-term temperature projections differ slightly among various emission scenarios for the climatology but are largely different for the trend., Competing Interests: Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Science China Press. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Abstract Based on the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) daily dataset, we investigate changes of the terrestrial extreme climates given that the global mean temperature increases persistently under the Representative Concentration Pathways 8.5 (RCP8.5) scenario. Compared to preindustrial conditions, more statistically significant extreme temperatures, precipitations, and dry spells are expected in the 21st century. Cold extremes decrease and warm extremes increase in a warmer world, and cold extremes tend to be more sensitive to global warming than the warm ones. When the global mean temperature increases, cold nights, cold days, and warm nights all display nonlinear relationships with it, such as the weakening of the link projected after 3 °C global warming, while the other indices generally exhibit differently, with linear relationships. Additionally, the relative changes in the indices related to extreme precipitation show significantly consistent linear changes with the global warming magnitude. Compared with the precipitation extremes, changes in temperature extremes are more strongly related to the global mean temperature changes. For the projection of the extreme precipitation changes, models show higher uncertainty than that in extreme temperature changes, and the uncertainty for the precipitation extremes becomes more remarkable when the global warming exceeds 5 °C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last glacial maximum (LGM, ca. 21,000 years ago) has been extensively investigated for better understanding of past glacial climates. Global-scale monsoon changes, however, have not yet been determined. In this study, we examine global monsoon area (GMA) and precipitation (GMP) as well as GMP intensity (GMPI) at the LGM using the experiments of 17 climate models chosen from the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP) according to their ability to reproduce the present global monsoon climate. Compared to the reference period (referring to the present day, ca. 1985, for three atmospheric plus two atm–slab ocean models and the pre-industrial period, ca. 1750, for 12 fully coupled atmosphere–ocean or atmosphere–ocean–vegetation models), the LGM monsoon area increased over land and decreased over the oceans. The boreal land monsoon areas generally shifted southward, while the northern boundary of land monsoon areas retreated southward over southern Africa and South America. Both the LGM GMP and GMPI decreased in most of the models. The GMP decrease mainly resulted from the reduced monsoon precipitation over the oceans, while the GMPI decrease was derived from the weakened intensity of monsoon precipitation over land and the boreal ocean. Quantitatively, the LGM GMP deficit was due to, first, the GMA reduction and, second, the GMPI weakening. In response to the LGM large ice sheets and lower greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, the global surface and tropospheric temperatures cooled, the boreal summer meridional temperature gradient increased, and the summer land–sea thermal contrast at 40°S – 70°N decreased. These are the underlying dynamic mechanisms for the LGM monsoon changes. Qualitatively, simulations agree with reconstructions in all land monsoon areas except in the western part of northern Australia where disagreements occur and in South America and the southern part of southern Africa where there is uncertainty in reconstructions. Simulations do not support an inter-hemispheric anti-phasing of monsoon intensity change as suggested by proxy data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Many efforts have been made to reconstruct the moisture conditions over China during the mid-Holocene, approximately 6000 calendar years ago. However, most of them have been performed at the single site level or local scale, and the nationwide distribution of the mid-Holocene precipitation and net precipitation (precipitation minus evaporation) changes from both proxy data and simulations remains unclear. Here we first selected 36 out of 51 climate models participating in the Paleoclimate Modeling Intercomparison Project (PMIP) for their demonstrable ability to simulate the baseline climate and for the availability of evaporation data. Our analysis of the ensemble mean results of the 36 models shows that the mid-Holocene annual precipitation, evaporation, and net precipitation were 3.0%, 0.9%, and 6.9% more than the baseline period, respectively, and seasonally all three variables decreased in boreal winter and spring but increased in boreal summer and autumn on the national scale. For that period, both the pattern and magnitude of the above changes differed between the models and the sub-regions, and the interactive ocean effect had little impact overall on the country. Compared with the wetter-than-present climates derived from the records at 64 out of 69 sites across China, the models agreed qualitatively with the multi-proxy data in most parts of China, except Xinjiang and the areas between the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze and Yellow River valleys, where drier-than-baseline climates were obtained from the 36 models. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]