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Intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) are a new strategy for mitigating climate change. Many international organizations and scholars have assessed the possibility of holding the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C based on INDCs. Although the conclusions of these assessments are consistent, there are still large differences among the assessment results. For example, the global greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 estimated by INDCs are between 47.1–66.5 GtCO2 eq, and the temperature increase at the end of the 21st century estimated by INDCs is between 2.4–4.0°C; the inconsistency represented by these ranges is not conducive to an accurate assessment of the contributions of the current INDCs to global warming mitigation or to the further development of emissions reduction programs. By summarizing the existing studies, we found that the main reasons for the differences in estimates of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 made using INDCs are as follows: (1) The studies interpreted INDCs differently, which is attributable to three reasons: The studies (a) made different assumptions for the unquantifiable INDCs; (b) ignored or used different methods to estimate the emissions not covered by INDCs; and (c) used different amounts of INDCs because the studies were performed at different times. (2) The studies used different databases that include different greenhouse gases, accounting methods and data sources to estimate historical greenhouse gas emissions. (3) The studies used different methods for estimating greenhouse gas emissions and removals related to land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF). (4) The studies used different values of the global warming potential. Additionally, the main reasons for the differences in the predictions of the temperature increase at the end of the 21st century based on INDCs are as follows: (1) Differences in the estimations of greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 based on INDCs and (2) different methods of extrapolating global greenhouse gas emissions to 2100. There are three main extrapolation methods: one is to maintain the net present value of the carbon price in 2030 and then extrapolate the greenhouse gas emissions to 2100; another is to maintain the decarbonization rate of a certain period of history and then extrapolate the greenhouse gas emissions to 2100; the third is to match the emissions reduction scenario with the current INDC emissions reduction scenario from the IPCC AR5 scenario database and then use the matching emissions reduction scenario as the current INDC emissions reduction scenario. The use of different methods of extrapolating carbon emissions is one of the main reasons for the differences in the prediction results. (3) Differences in the methods for predicting the effects of greenhouse gas emissions on temperature. Statistical methods and simulation methods are the two main prediction methods; they use different calculation methods, which led to the difference in the prediction results. Therefore, the following points are worth noting: (1) Most importantly, to the extent possible, countries should submit absolute emissions reduction targets as much as possible; nonquantifiable INDCs without detailed methods descriptions and data introductions should not be submitted; (2) authorities should recommend certain data sets that are the most suitable for INDC accounting; (3) a global warming potential should be designated to avoid differences in greenhouse gas estimates due to the use of different criteria; and (4) to the extent possible, future research should adopt simulation methods for predicting the impact of global greenhouse gas emissions on temperature.

The Ancient Silk Road has a history of more than 2000 years and gave birth to the diversities of culture between East and West. Climate change may have played a crucial role in this process and in the flourishing and decline of civilizations. In this work, high-resolution temperature reconstructions covering more than 1000 years along the Ancient Silk Road are reviewed, and the main characteristics of temperature and hydroclimatic changes are summarized. Four warm stages occurred that included the 1st–3rd centuries, the late 7th century to the early 11th century, the mid-12th century to the mid-13th century, and since the 20th century, and three cold stages, including the 4th century to the early 7th century, the middle of the 11th century to the early 12th century, and the end of the 13th century to the mid-19th century, occurred. Within these various stages, regional differences existed in amplitudes and starting–ending years of the cold/warm phases. Wetness and dryness variabilities during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) were greater than during the Little Ice Age in Northwestern China. The climate was dry during the MCA in Central Asia, South Scandinavia, and North-central Europe. In addition, the climate backgrounds of several famous kingdoms flowering and social events that flourished during these times, such as the Roman Empire, the Loulan Kingdom, the Tibetan Kingdom, and the three unprecedented Mongol westward conquests, are discussed.

The natural environment provides material essentials for human survival and development. The characteristics, processes, regional differentiation and forcing mechanisms of the elements of the natural environment (e.g. geomorphology, climate, hydrology, soil, etc.) are the main objects of research in physical geography. China has a complex natural environment and huge regional differentiation and therefore it provides outstanding reserach opportunities in physical geography. This review summarizes the most important developments and the main contributions of research in the physical geography and human living environment in China during the past 70 years. The major topics addressed are the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau and the evolution of its cryosphere, the development of fluvial systems, the acidification of the vast arid region of the Asian interior, variations in the monsoon and westerly climate systems on multiple timescales, the development of lakes and wetlands, the watershed system model, soil erosion, past human-environment interactions, biogeography, and physical geographic zonality. After briefly introducing international research developments, we review the history of research in physical geography in China, focusing on the major achievements and major academic debates, and finally we summarize the status of current research and the future prospects. We propose that in the context of the national demand for the construction of an ecological civilization, we should make full use of the research findings of physical geography, and determine the patterns and mechanisms of natural environmental processes in order to continue to promote the continued contribution of physical geography to national development strategies, and to further contribute to the theory of physical geography from a global perspective.

Changes in climate extremes under 1.5 &ordm, C and 2 &ordm, C global warming may impact agricultural production across Central Asia. We used the simulated daily data of average temperature, maximum temperature, minimum temperature, and precipitation provided by the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project and analyzed the current climate status and future projected changes of a set of climate extreme indices related to agricultural production under 1.5 &ordm, C global warming. In addition, the possible impacts of climate change on agricultural production in Central Asia were discussed. The results show that the annual mean temperature in Central Asia will increase by 1.48 &ordm, C and 2.34 &ordm, C at 1.5 &ordm, C warming levels, respectively, compared to the base period (1986-2005), and the increasing trends are significant at the &alpha, = 0.01 level for all grids. The number of warm days and growing season length will increase. Under the 1.5 &ordm, C scenario, the mean annual total precipitation (PRCPTOT) and heavy precipitation (R95P) will experience increases of 7.68% and 26.55%, respectively, and the consecutive dry days (CDD) will be reduced by 1.1 days. However, the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) shows significant drought conditions in most of Central Asia (more than 60%). Under the 2 &ordm, C scenario, there will be a 3.89% increase in PRCPTOT and a 24.78% increase in R95P. Nevertheless, accompanying the increase in CDD (0.8 day) and the decrease in SPEI, drought conditions will be further exacerbated. These results indicate that Central Asia is likely to face more severe ecological problems in the future, which will threaten the regional agricultural production and the food security. Therefore, adaptation strategies should be implemented immediately to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change on Central Asia&rsquo, s agriculture.

Heat escape-motivated travel, called “sunbird” tourism, has become increasingly important with global warming and associated urban heat island effects. This study proposes a new method based on defining “comfortable” calendar days, to identify regions thermally suitable for “sunbird” tourism (namely northern Northeast China, eastern Inner Mongolia Plateau, northern Xinjiang Province, eastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and Yungui Plateau) and their comfortable periods in China. From 1961–1990 to 1987–2016, comfortable periods have extended by 5 to over 20 days in eastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and parts of Yungui Plateau, but shortened by 5 to over 20 days in northern Northeast China and eastern Inner Mongolia Plateau, corresponding to 9 and 21 locations respectively becoming suitable and no longer suitable for “sunbird” tourism. Moreover, comfortable periods are now much earlier in the eastern Inner Mongolia Plateau and have dramatically altered in terms of their temporal distribution over the eastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Finally, we discuss the implications for tourism.

This paper presents new high-resolution proxies and paleoclimatic reconstructions for studying climate changes in China for the past 2000 years. Multi-proxy synthesized reconstructions show that temperature variation in China has exhibited significant 50–70-yr, 100–120-yr, and 200–250-yr cycles. Results also show that the amplitudes of decadal and centennial temperature variation were 1.3°C and 0.7°C, respectively, with the latter significantly correlated with long-term changes in solar radiation, especially cold periods, which correspond approximately to sunspot minima. The most rapid warming in China occurred over AD 1870–2000, at a rate of 0.56° ± 0.42°C (100 yr)−1; however, temperatures recorded in the 20th century may not be unprecedented for the last 2000 years, as data show records for the periods AD 981–1100 and AD 1201–70 are comparable to the present. The ensemble means of dryness/wetness spatial patterns in eastern China across all centennial warm periods illustrate a tripole pattern: dry south of 25°N, wet from 25°–30°N, and dry to the north of 30°N. However, for all centennial cold periods, this spatial pattern also exhibits a meridional distribution. The increase in precipitation over the monsoonal regions of China associated with the 20th century warming can primarily be attributed to a mega El Ni˜no–Southern Oscillation and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. In addition, a significant association between increasing numbers of locusts and dry/cold conditions is found in eastern China. Plague intensity also generally increases in concert with wetness in northern China, while more precipitation is likely to have a negative effect in southern China.

In this study, spatial-temporal statistical technologies were utilized to interpolate a dryness and wetness grade dataset, which was reconstructed from previous Chinese historical documents, but with significant data gaps in the past 1000 years, and a complete grade dataset of dryness and wetness was developed for Guanzhong Plain including seven sites at Linfen, Changzhi, Xi’an, Fengxiang, Luoyang, Nanyang and Hanzhong. The probit model was used to interpolate the missing values at the spatial scale depending on the highest variance explanation between neighbouring stations, and the Markov chain model was used to interpolate the temporal series depending on the known features of the dataset from 1470 to 2010. On the basis of this dataset, long-term variation features and extreme drought and flood events in the Guanzhong Plain were identified. By means of wavelet analysis and ensemble empirical mode decomposition methods, the main cycles of interannual-interdecadal-centennial scales of dryness and wetness variations were detected and the relationships between periodicity and driving forces were analyzed. Results indicated that the dry-wet change of the Guanzhong Plain has had three stages in the past 1000 years, that is, the climate changed from wet to dry in 960–1150, then from dry to wet in 1151–1800, and again from wet to dry after 1801. On the half-centennial time scale, five wet periods in 960–1000, 1151–1200, 1251–1300, 1351–1400 and 1651–1900, and five dry periods in 1001–1150, 1201–1250, 1301–1350, 1401–1650 and after 1901 were identified. Extreme drought and flood events occurred with high frequency in the 17th and 19th–20th centuries, about once every two years. Extreme drought events lasting 5 years occurred in 1070–1089, 1212–1216, 1327–1331, 1431–1445, 1481–1491, 1634–1641, 1688–1692, 1714–1722, 1875–1878, 1925–1931 and 1993–1997. Extreme flood events lasting 5 years occurred in 981–985, 1647–1653, 1658–1664, 1676–1680, 1725–1730, 1848–1854 and 1882–1889. The dry-wet changes of the Guanzhong Plain has an inter-annual oscillation with a 3–7-year scale, inter-decadal oscillations with quasi-10-year, quasi-30-year and quasi-70-year scales and a centennial oscillation with a quasi-100-year scale. The climate of Guanzhong Plain tends to be drier than in a normal year in the year of the occurrence of the El Nino or the following year. On the quasi-70-year scale, the correlation of the Pacific Decadal Oscillations and the dry-wet change shows a positive (negative) relationship before (after) 1435, which suggested that the relationship between them is not stable in the long term. In addition, the solar maximum corresponds to the dry climate. It is worth noting that due to the lack of long climate series, both reconstruction and model simulation approaches are used to study climate change during historical times. The reconstructed dryness and wetness variations for the past 1000 years in Guanzhong Plain may still lack certainty, and in the future, further analyses and comparisons between the reconstructions and simulations need to be conducted, in order to diagnose the dynamic mechanisms of the climate features in Guanzhong Plain.

The community of climate change impact assessments and adaptations research needs regional high-resolution (spatial) meteorological data. This study produced two downscaled precipitation datasets with spatial resolutions of as high as 3 km by 3 km for the Heihe River Basin (HRB) from 2011 to 2014 using the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model nested with Final Analysis (FNL) from the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) and ERA-Interim from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) (hereafter referred to as FNLexp and ERAexp, respectively). Both of the downscaling simulations generally reproduced the observed spatial patterns of precipitation. However, users should keep in mind that the two downscaled datasets are not exactly the same in terms of observations. In comparison to the remote sensing-based estimation, the FNLexp produced a bias of heavy precipitation centers. In comparison to the ground gauge-based measurements, for the warm season (May to September), the ERAexp produced more precipitation (root-mean-square error (RMSE) = 295.4 mm, across the 43 sites) and more heavy rainfall days, while the FNLexp produced less precipitation (RMSE = 115.6 mm) and less heavy rainfall days. Both the ERAexp and FNLexp produced considerably more precipitation for the cold season (October to April) with RMSE values of 119.5 and 32.2 mm, respectively, and more heavy precipitation days. Along with simulating a higher number of heavy precipitation days, both the FNLexp and ERAexp also simulated stronger extreme precipitation. Sensitivity experiments show that the bias of these simulations is much more sensitive to micro-physical parameterizations than to the spatial resolution of topography data. For the HRB, application of the WSM3 scheme may improve the performance of the WRF model.

Chinese historical documents recorded plenty of information related with climate change and grain harvest, which are helpful to explore the impacts of extreme drought/flood on crops and the implications on adaptation for agriculture to more extreme climate probability in the context of global warming. Here, we used the reconstructed extreme drought/flood chronologies and reconstructed grain harvest series derived from historical documents to investigate the connection between the occurrences of extreme drought/flood in eastern China and poor harvest during 801–1910. The results showed that more extreme droughts occurred in 801–870, 1031–1230, 1481–1530 and 1581–1650 over whole eastern China. On regional scale, more extreme droughts occurred in 1031–1100, 1441–1490, 1601–1650 and 1831–1880 in North China, 801–870, 1031–1120, 1161–1220 and 1471–1530 in Jianghuai, 991–1040, 1091–1150, 1171–1230, 1411–1470 and 1481–1530 in Jiangnan. The grain harvest was poor in periods of 801–940, 1251–1650 and 1841 to 1910, but bumper in periods of 951–1250 and 1651–1840 approximately. For entire period of 801–1910, more occurrence of extreme drought in any sub–region of eastern China could significantly reduce harvest in the long term average, but the connection between harvest and extreme flood seemed to be much weaker. The co–occurrence of extreme drought and extreme flood in different sub–regions in the same year had a greater impact on harvest yield. However, the connection between the occurrence of poor harvest and regional extreme drought was weak in the warm epoch of 920–1300 but strong in the cold epoch of 1310–1880, which implicated warm climate might weaken the impact of extreme drought on poor harvest during historical times.

China is distinguished by a prominent monsoonal climate in the east of the country, a continental arid climate in the northwest and a highland cold climate on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Because of the long history of Chinese civilization, there are abundant and well-dated documentary records for climate variation over the whole of the country as well as many natural archives (e.g., tree-rings, ice cores, stalagmites, varved lake sediments and corals) that enable high-resolution paleoclimatic reconstruction. In this paper, we review recent advances in the reconstruction of climate and extreme events over the last 2000 years in China. In the last 10 years, many new reconstructions, based on multi-proxies with wide spatial coverage, have been published in China. These reconstructions enable us to understand the characteristics of climate change across the country as well as the uncertainties of regional reconstructions. Synthesized reconstructed temperature results show that warm intervals over the last 2000 years occurred in AD 1–200, AD 551–760, AD 951–1320, and after AD 1921, and also show that cold intervals were in AD 201–350, AD 441–530, AD 781–950, and AD 1321–1920. Extreme cold winters, seen between 1500 and 1900, were more frequent than those after 1950. The intensity of regional heat waves, in the context of recent global warming, may not in fact exceed natural climate variability seen over the last 2000 years. In the eastern monsoonal region of China, decadal, multi-decadal and centennial oscillations are seen in rainfall variability. While the ensemble mean for drought/flood spatial patterns across all cold periods shows a meridional distribution, there is a tri-pole pattern with respect to droughts south of 25°N, floods between 25° and 30°N, and droughts north of 30°N for all warm periods. Data show that extreme drought events were most frequent in the periods AD 301–400, AD 751–800, AD 1051–1150, AD 1501–1550, and AD 1601–1650, while extreme flood events were frequent in the periods AD 101–150, AD 251–300, AD 951–1000, AD 1701–1750, AD 1801–1850, and AD 1901–1950. Between AD 1551–1600, extreme droughts and flood events occurred frequently. In arid northwest China, climate was characterized by dry conditions in AD 1000–1350, wet conditions in AD 1500–1850, and has tended to be wet over recent decades. On the northeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, centennial-scale oscillations in precipitation have occurred over the last 1000 years, interrupted by several multi-decadal-scale severe drought events. Of these, the most severe were in the 1480s and 1710s. In southwest China, extreme droughts as severe as those seen in Sichuan and Chongqing in 2006 are known to have occurred during historical times.

This study is based on the Qing government water level gauge records from Wanjingtan of the Sanmenxia Gorge in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, Muluandian in the lower reaches of Qinhe River, and Shijingshan and Lugou Bridge in the lower reaches of Yongding River. The beginning of the flood season has been reconstructed. The anomaly series of the flood season is assessed using pentad scales. The sequence represents the middle reaches of the Yellow River, the lower reaches of the Qinhe River, and the lower reaches of Yongding River. Within the research period, the middle reaches of the Yellow River and the lower reaches of the Qinhe River began the flood season on 6–10 July on average, and Yongding River began 16–20 July. The Yongding River is relatively stable and the start of rainy season of its upstream was basically maintained in early July. The middle reaches of the Yellow River and the lower reaches of the Qinhe River show great fluctuation, with discrepancies up to 3 months. The same anomalous fluctuation in the flood season of the middle reaches of the Yellow River and the Qinhe River is more obvious after the mid-19th century. The delay of flood season by about one pentad in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, Qinhe River, and Yongding River is in accordance with the relative low temperature of the Loess plateau in summer, while the early flood season of the middle reaches of the Yellow River and Qinhe River corresponds with the relative high summer temperature in the Loess Plateau. The beginning time of the flood season in the research area is the time the rainy season begins. The length of summer-monsoon rainy season during 1860s–1940s has been reconstructed, as the Little Ice Age transformed to the Modern Warm Period in China. Rapid warming could change the summer rainy season by 2–3 pentads.

The human-climate-ecosystem interactions in the past were valuable for today’s human beings who face the challenge of global change. The multi-proxy reconstruction of climate change impacts and social responses and the comparative study between typical periods form an effective tool for elucidating the mechanisms of the interactions. In this paper, with a reconstruction of the proxy series of famine, migration and wars, the most typical social consequences related to climate change and disasters (flood/drought) in North China in 1470–1911 were quantitatively described, and two typical periods of human-climate interaction with similar climate change backgrounds (cold periods of the ‘Little Ice Age’), which were the late Ming dynasty (1560–1644) and late Qing dynasty (1780–1911), were selected and compared. It is determined that the climate deterioration (rapid cooling and increasing extreme disasters) in the late 16th and 18th centuries both resulted in severe social consequences characterized by more famine and popular unrest. The differences were that the climatic impacts in the late Ming were much more serious, and interregional migration, which was an effective responsive measure in the late Qing, was not important in the late Ming; they were primarily influenced by three factors based on the analytical framework of the impacts of historical climate change and social responses: (1) climate deterioration in the late Ming was more severe (more rapid cooling and more extreme disasters), (2) social system were more sensitive to climate change in the late Ming because of its mode of agricultural production (especially cropping system and crop species), and (3) the capacity of social response to climate disaster, especially disaster relief and refugee settlement, was considerably greater in the late Qing.

Based on the reconstructed temperatures, precipitation changes, and occurrences of extreme climate events, together with historical records on fiscal deterioration, food crises, and the frequencies of popular unrest, rebellions and wars, we identified three principal ways in which climate change contributed to the collapse in the Ming dynasty. Firstly, cooling, aridification, and desertification during a cold period destroyed the military farm system, which was the main supply system for the provisioning of government troops on the northern frontiers; these impacts increased the military expenditure from 64 % of total government expenditure in 1548–1569 to 76 % in 1570–1589 and thus aggravated the national fiscal crisis that occurred during the late Ming dynasty. Secondly, climate deterioration (e.g., cooling, aridification, and an increase in the frequencies of frost- and drought-related disasters, etc.) led to a 20–50 % reduction in the per capita production of raw grain in most areas of China, which resulted in widespread food crises and exacerbated the vulnerability of social structures during the last several decades of the Ming dynasty. Thirdly, the severe droughts occurring in 1627–1643 were a key trigger to the peasantry uprising. These droughts also played a significant role to promote the peasantry uprising, especially reviving the peasantry troops by recruitment of famine victims when they nearly perished in 1633 and 1638, and severely disrupting the food supply for the government troops, resulting in the final defeat of the government troops by the peasantry troops. This study contributes to an understanding of the climate-related mechanisms behind the collapse of the Ming dynasty, and provides a historical case study that enhances our understanding of the nature of interactions between climate change and social vulnerability.

Phenology can be used to track plant responses to climate change. In China, several studies have found the earlier trends of spring phenophases over the past 50 years. However, few studies put these phenological changes into historical perspective. Based on specific phenophases records from historical diaries and Chinese Phenological Observation Network, we developed spring phenology index (SPI) time series in temperate and subtropical regions of eastern China from 1850 to 2009. We firstly compare the temporal change of SPI and seasonal temperature anomaly. Subsequently, we search for common shifts in phenological and temperature time series by applying the moving t-test method, and discuss temperature sensitivity of SPI by using the moving linear regression method for both regions. Results show that the SPI in temperate region revealed lower interannual variability than in subtropical region, while the seasonal temperature variability was higher in temperate region. In temperate region, the timing of significant shift towards earlier SPI (in 1979) coincides with the timing of shift in spring temperature time series. The temperature sensitivities of SPI differ among the two regions. The mean sensitivity of SPI to spring temperature in subtropical region (-3.7 days degrees C-1) is stronger than in temperate region (-2.5 days degrees C-1). The temperature sensitivity of SPI varies among consecutive 30-year periods. In recent three decades, temperature sensitivity of spring phenophases became stronger in both regions.

Extending phenological records into the past is essential for the understanding of past ecological change and evaluating the effects of climate change on ecosystems. A growing body of historical phenological information is now available for Europe, North America, and Asia. In East Asia, long-term phenological series are still relatively scarce. This study extracted plant phenological observations from old diaries in the period 1834–1962. A spring phenology index (SPI) for the modern period (1963–2009) was defined as the mean flowering time of three shrubs (first flowering of Amygdalus davidiana and Cercis chinensis, 50% of full flowering of Paeonia suffruticosa) according to the data availability. Applying calibrated transfer functions from the modern period to the historical data, we reconstructed a continuous SPI time series across eastern China from 1834 to 2009. In the recent 30 years, the SPI is 2.1–6.3 days earlier than during any other consecutive 30 year period before 1970. A moving linear trend analysis shows that the advancing trend of SPI over the past three decades reaches upward of 4.1 d/decade, which exceeds all previously observed trends in the past 30 year period. In addition, the SPI series correlates significantly with spring (February to April) temperatures in the study area, with an increase in spring temperature of 1°C inducing an earlier SPI by 3.1 days. These shifts of SPI provide important information regarding regional vegetation-climate relationships, and they are helpful to assess long term of climate change impacts on biophysical systems and biodiversity.

Depending on the descriptions of crop yield and social response to crop failure/harvest from Chinese historical documents, we classified the crop yield of North China during 601–900 AD into six categories and quantified each category to be the crop yield grades. We found that the regional mean crop yield had a significant (P<0.01) negative trend at the rate of −0.24% per decade. The interannual, multiple-decadal, and century-scale variability accounted for ~47%, ~30%, and ~20% of the total variations of crop yield, respectively. The interannual variability was significantly (P<0.05) persistent across the entire period. The multiple-decadal variability was more dominant after 750 AD than that before 750 AD, while the century-scale variability was more dominant before 750 AD than that after 750 AD. The variations of crop yield could be partly explained by temperature changes. On one hand, the declining trend of crop yield cooccurred with the climate cooling trend from 601 to 900 AD; on the other hand, the crop yield was positively correlated with temperature changes at 30-year resolution with the correlation coefficient of 0.59 (P<0.1). These findings supported that high (low) crop yield occurred in the warming (cooling) climate.

Climate change is one of the focuses to mitigate greenhouse effect and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. First, the paper summarizes on the carbon dioxide emission factors and methods suitable to the situation in China. Second, it analyzes the primary energy-related carbon dioxide emissions during the period between 1995 and 2005 from different fossil fuels and different zones. The trend of primary energy-related carbon dioxide emissions from 1995 to 2005 is “first decreasing and later increasing.” Seven regions – Liaoning, Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, Henan, and Jiangsu – and most of the provinces (cities or regions) were found to have similar trends regarding total carbon dioxide emissions in China. The annual carbon dioxide emissions and the growth ratio of these seven regions are much higher compared to those of the other 24 provinces (cities or regions). Finally, this paper puts forward some suggestions to reduce carbon dioxide.

The local/regional temperature changes were significantly regulated by land surface changes. This study aims to reveal the effects of vegetation increase/decrease on temperature changes from 1982 to 2000 across the Eastern China. To reach this goal, we performed two 20-year simulations, dynamical vegetation experiment (DYCV) and fixed vegetation experiment (FIXV), with the coupled Weather Research and Forecast (WRF)-Noah model. The DYCV used the essential satellite-measured vegetation variations from 1982 to 2000 while FIXV kept the vegetation properties in 1982 for the entire simulation. The results show that vegetation increase/decrease exerted negative effects locally and the effects were stronger in growth season than that in non-growth season. From 1982 to 2000, in the areas where vegetation increased, such as North China Plain for the spring and south part of Northeast China for the summer and autumn, climate warming was slowed; whereas, in the areas where vegetation decreased, such as Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta for the summer, climate warming was enhanced. Such negative effect was resulted from changes in partition of surface net radiation between surface latent heat and sensible heat. Increased vegetation caused more evaportranspiration and thus more latent heat and less sensible heat; it is reverse for the decreased vegetation. In comparing, changes in surface net radiation were too slight to be detected. Noted that, due to flaws of coupled WRF-Noah model, the results for the summer and winter have some uncertainties and needed to be verified with more studies. Copyright (c) 2013 Royal Meteorological Society

An overview of basic research on climate change in recent years in China is presented. In the past 100 years in China, average annual mean surface air temperature (SAT) has increased at a rate ranging from 0.03°C (10 yr)−1 to 0.12°C (10 yr)−1. This warming is more evident in northern China and is more significant in winter and spring. In the past 50 years in China, at least 27% of the average annual warming has been caused by urbanization. Overall, no significant trends have been detected in annual and/or summer precipitation in China on a whole for the past 100 years or 50 years. Both increases and decreases in frequencies of major extreme climate events have been observed for the past 50 years. The frequencies of extreme temperature events have generally displayed a consistent pattern of change across the country, while the frequencies of extreme precipitation events have shown only regionally and seasonally significant trends. The frequency of tropical cyclone landfall decreased slightly, but the frequency of sand/dust storms decreased significantly. Proxy records indicate that the annual mean SAT in the past a few decades is the highest in the past 400–500 years in China, but it may not have exceeded the highest level of the Medieval Warm Period (1000–1300 AD). Proxy records also indicate that droughts and floods in eastern China have been characterized by continuously abnormal rainfall periods, with the frequencies of extreme droughts and floods in the 20th century most likely being near the average levels of the past 2000 years. The attribution studies suggest that increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere are likely to be a main factor for the observed surface warming nationwide. The Yangtze River and Huaihe River basins underwent a cooling trend in summer over the past 50 years, which might have been caused by increased aerosol concentrations and cloud cover. However, natural climate variability might have been a main driver for the mean and extreme precipitation variations observed over the past century. Climate models generally perform well in simulating the variations of annual mean SAT in China. They have also been used to project future changes in SAT under varied GHG emission scenarios. Large uncertainties have remained in these model-based projections, however, especially for the projected trends of regional precipitation and extreme climate events.

Daily weather records from a historical private diary provide important data for studying historical climate change. We compiled daily weather records from the Weng Tong-He Diary and counted the number of monthly precipitation days during 1860-1897 AD for Beijing; then, using the number of monthly precipitation days, we reconstructed the seasonal precipitation using regression models relating the precipitation and precipitation days. The findings show that the monthly mean number of precipitation days for 1860-1897 was greater than that for 1951-2009 by about 1 d month1 and that the summer (June to August, JJA) precipitation for 1860-1897 was 471.8 mm greater than that for 1951-2009 by about 15.5%. The JJA precipitation of 1860-1897 had not only inter-annual variations but also inter-decadal variations that were characterized by less precipitation before 1886 (about 421.9 mm) and more precipitation thereafter (about 550.7 mm). As a consequence, the JJA precipitation of 1860-1897 showed an evident positive trend with a rate of about 57.9 mm per decade. These precipitation variations were confirmed by other datasets. However, it is worth noting that our reconstruction underestimates the historical precipitation values (by about 22.5%) because of rainfall/snowfall events missed in Weng's diary and the poor ability of the regression models to capture extreme years. In the future, new methods of reconstructing precipitation with the consideration of missed rainfall/snowfall events are needed. Copyright (c) 2012 Royal Meteorological Society

Confirming the results of previous regional studies on changes in first bloom dates (FBD) in China, this study provides evidence that complements conclusions drawn from studies of phenological changes in other dynamic climate systems in the Northern Hemisphere. Furthermore, increased occurrences of yearly second blooms (YSB) further reinforce results derived from other studies indicating a recent trend of generalized climate warming across China. Additionally, ascertaining changes in FBD and YSB against a recent background not only provides a hitherto poorly formulated autumnal equivalent to the well-studied shifts in FBD, but also formulates both spring and autumn flowering changes in recent years. Data in this study are derived from observations made from 1963 to 2006 by the Chinese Phenological Observation Network (CPON)-a nationwide system of monitoring stations that has made observations of over 173 species from across China since 1963. At each site, the mean value of each species' annual deviation and spring mean surface temperatures were calculated. For each species, years and locations were also recorded for species in which second blooms (YSB) occurred. Of the 46 FBD samples, 31 showed advances from the mean, blooming earlier over the course of the study period. Notably, although only 8 of the 46 FBD samples showed significance levels of 0.1 or better, the average FBD did advance by 5.3 days. After the 1980s, the frequency of YSB occurrence remained steady, declining a little from the peak in the 1980s, but still exhibiting occurrences far more than were observed earlier. The data from this study clearly indicate that both the phenological advance of FBD in spring and the increased occurrence of YSB are consistent with climate warming.

The recent progresses on the reconstruction of historical land cover and the studies on regional climatic effects to temperature, precipitation, and the East Asian Monsoon across China were reviewed. Findings show that the land cover in China has been significantly modified by human activities over the last several thousands years, mainly through cropland expansion and forest clearance. The cropland over traditional Chinese agricultural areas increased from 5.32×105 km2 in the mid-17th century to 8.27×105 km2 in the mid-20th century, while the forest area over the Chinese mainland had been reduced by 1.66×106 km2 during the last 300 years. These changes of land cover have been detected as an important driving force of climate change by simulations of climatic effects based on various climate models (including RegCM3, RegCM2-NCC, RIEMS version1, MM5 version 2, and AGCM+SSiB) with reconstructed historical land cover data or by contrasting current land cover to potential natural vegetation. The human-induced land cover changes over China have led to the enhancement of the East Asian winter monsoon, as well as cooling in winter and warming in summer approximately since 1700. However, the simulation results on annual mean temperature, precipitation, and the East Asian summer monsoon varied from model to model, which cannot be simply attributed to certain forcing so far, but undoubtedly, using different land cover datasets in various simulations played a key role. Thus, developing more accurate gridded historical land cover datasets on different regional scales with high time resolution is needed in the future.

Much effort has been spent in the last few decades to reconstruct the climate over China using a variety of historical documents. However, differences in the results of reconstructions exist even when people are using similar documents. In order to address this issue, 14 published temperature series by different studies were analyzed for coherence and mutual consistency. The analyses on their temporal fluctuations indicate that for the individual time series (standardized) on the 10-years time scales, 57 of the 91 correlation coefficients reach the significance level of 99%. The spatial patterns among the different time series also show high coherency. In addition, consistency also exhibit when comparing the reconstructions with other available natural climate change indicators. Above information was subsequently used to synthesize the temperature series for the last 500 and 1000 years. Copyright (C) 2007 Royal Meteorological Society.

Climate change is often called changes caused by natural factors or human activities in terms of worldwide or regional, and it usually means a giant change or lasting a long time (≥10 years) on average and statistically, which includes changes in terms of mean value and change rate. Whereas, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) defines it as “climate change caused directly or indirectly by human activity’s changing the combination of the atmosphere after a long time of observation, apart from natural climate changes”. Although the two definitions differ a lot, now people mainly concern these climate change phenomenon: global warming in climate and ocean, frequency changes of extreme climate events, polar and mountain snow and glacier melting, lining up of the global ocean surface level, global precipitation changes in terms of time and space, increasing drought and flood, and other physical and chemical factors influencing global temperature and precipitation directly. Terrestrial ecosystem’s carbon cycle is the key to its material and energy cycle, and also a tie of geosphere–biosphere–atmosphere interaction. To deeply understand the carbon cycle’s process and mechanism is the basis to discuss ecosystem’s carbon management strategy and to analyze human’s progress in preventing and regulating global warming. This chapter systematically states our country’s research progress on climate change’s historical process in the first place, and then it makes comments on China’s carbon cycle study from several perspectives as the relationship between carbon cycle and climate change, carbon budget and its cycling mechanism, human activity’s influence on carbon cycle, global change’s influence on carbon cycle, etc. It then summarizes research progress in studying carbon cycle process, its influencing factors and global changing response from different perspectives of forestry, grassland, farmland, wetland, etc. Finally, it makes a comprehensive comment on our country’s technological progress in terrestrial ecosystem’s carbon-nitrogen-water flux observation technology and applications, which provides valuable information to China’s scientific research work, state-level carbon budget evaluation, and greenhouse gas management in the field of ecosystem carbon cycle.

Global climate change is likely to alter the phenological patterns of plants due to the controlling effects of climate on plant ontogeny, especially in an urbanized environment. We studied relationships between various phenophases (i.e., seasonal biological events) and interannual variations of air temperature in three woody plant species (Prunus davidiana, Hibiscus syriacus, and Cercis chinensis) in the Beijing Metropolis, China, based on phenological data for the period 1962-2004 and meteorological data for the period 1951-2004. Analysis of phenology and climate data indicated significant changes in spring and autumn phenophases and temperatures. Changes in phenophases were observed for all the three species, consistent with patterns of rising air temperatures in the Beijing Metropolis. The changing phenology in the three plant species was reflected mainly as advances of the spring phenophases and delays in the autumn phenophases, but with strong variations among species and phenophases in response to different temperature indices. Most phenophases (both spring and autumn phenophases) had significant relationships with temperatures of the preceding months. There existed large inter- and intra-specific variations, however, in the responses of phenology to climate change. It is clear that the urban heat island effect from 1978 onwards is a dominant cause of the observed phenological changes. Differences in phenological responses to climate change may cause uncertain ecological consequences, with implications for ecosystem stability and function in urban environments.

In light of the observed climate changes in recent decades over eastern China, we studied the changes in spring phenophases of woody plants observed at 16-stations during 1963–1996, and explored the possible link between the spring phenophases changes and climate changes before the phenophase onset. It is found that, in the region north of 33∘N (including Northeast, North China and the lower reaches of the Huaihe River), the phenophase advanced 1.1–4.3 days per decade for early spring and 1.4–5.4 days per decade for late spring, but in the eastern part of the southwest China it was dealyed by 2.9–6.9 days per decade in early spring and 2.4–6.2 days per decade in late spring. One outstanding feature is identified in Guangzhou in south China, where significant advance of 7.5 days per decade in early spring and delay of 4.6 days per decade in late spring were detected. Statistically siginficant correlation was found between the changes of spring phenophase and the temperatures of one or several months before the phenophase onset. The relationship between the trend of phenophase change and temperature change was highly non-linear (more sensitivity to cooling than to warming) and reached an asymptote 0.5∘C per decade, which may have implication in the responses of the ecosystem in a future global warming scenario. In addition, we also examined the link between the spring phenophase, and length and mean temperature of the growing season, and the analyses suggested that they were highly correlated as well.

To understand the effects of the land use/cover changes due to agricultural development on summer climate in Eastern China, four 12-year simulations using the WRF-SSiB model were performed. We found that agricultural development resulted in warming and rainy effects. In the middle to lower reaches of the Yellow River and the Yangtze River, the warming effects were approximately 0.6°C and resulted from increased surface net radiation and sensible heat fluxes. In Northeast China, the warming effects were very small due to increases in latent heat fluxes which resulted from the extensive conversion from grassland to cropland. The rainy effect resulted from increases in convective rainfall, which was associated with a warming surface in certain areas of the Yellow River and Yangtze River and a large increase in the surface moisture flux in Northeast China. Conversely, in the middle to lower reaches of the Yellow River and the Yangtze River, the grid-scale rainfall decreased because the climatological northward wind, which is moist and warm, was partially offset by a southward wind anomaly. These findings suggest that the agricultural development left footprints not only on the present climate but also on the historical climate changes before the industrial revolution.

Based on snow, rainfall and harvest archives records in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911AD), the modem meteorological observation data, the annual winter mean temperature and seasonal precipitation series from 1736 to 2000 and the series of harvest in summer and autumn from 1730 to 1910 are reconstructed. Meanwhile, the characteristics of climate change and the relationship between climate change and harvest are analyzed by using the high-resolution data. The result shows: (1) Warm and cold changes in Xi'an have obvious inter-centennial fluctuation. Climate is relative warm in the 18th century and cold in the 19th century, but in the 20th century, climate turn to warm period with a rapid warming trend. (2) Precipitation changes have obvious inter-decadal fluctuation. It goes through six rainy periods and seven drought periods in Xi'an since 1736, in which the mean precipitation in the rainy periods is 16% more than that in droughty periods. (3) The coefficients between the precipitation from June to August and the harvest in autumn, and the precipitation during the period of September to May and the harvest in summer are remarkable. The relationship between inter-decadal temperature variations and harvests is significant too, which suggests that the long-term warm /cold change has important effects on harvest.