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Recent wetting trend in China from 1982 to 2016 and the impacts of extreme El Niño events
Author(s) -
Yan Hao,
Wang ShaoQiang,
Wang JunBang,
Guo AnHong,
Zhu ZaiChun,
Myneni Ranga B.,
Shugart Herman H.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
international journal of climatology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.58
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-0088
pISSN - 0899-8418
DOI - 10.1002/joc.6530
Subject(s) - china , climatology , precipitation , climate change , environmental science , potential evaporation , global warming , geography , physical geography , meteorology , geology , oceanography , archaeology
Climate warming generally is expected to increase drought, but arguments about China's past drought trends persist. PDSI ARTS , a revised self‐calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index, was computed for China over 1982–2016 using satellite leaf‐area indices combined with monthly climate data interpolated from 2000 high‐density stations. Drought climatology was analysed against climate factors. The results show that temperature has increased at a rate of 0.38°C per decade ( p < .001) in China in the past 35 years (1982–2016). However, over the same interval, China and the northern China region became wetter. PDSI ARTS increased at a rate of 0.03 yr −1 ( p < .001) across China during 1982–2016. The analogous increase of PDSI ARTS in northern China was 0.05 yr −1 ( p < .001). In China, the 5‐year interval from 2012 to 2016 was the wettest 5 years in the 35‐year interval. This arises from the coupled effects of decreased potential evaporation ( E p ) and increased precipitation ( P r ). The implication is that temperature increase does not necessarily indicate increased drought. A potential complication is that the 2015/16 El Niño event induced the highest P r in southern China for 1982–2016, and northern China still had plentiful P r in 2015/16, which further contributed to the wettest 2‐years (2015/16) during the past 35 years in the whole of China. This study highlights the joint impacts of P r and E p on the dry/wet changes and the possibility of extremely wet events in the warming future.