Climate change will change the service environment of water conservancy projects. As one of the main construction materials for water conservancy projects, hydraulic concrete is more sensitive and fragile to extreme climate condition. The observed influences of low temperature, cold wave and drought on China’s hydraulic concrete structures were summarized. Considering future climate change and its potential impacts on construction materials of water conservancy projects, the adaptation measures for improving properties of hydraulic concrete and guaranteeing safety of water conservancy projects during the different stage of design, construction and operation of water conservancy engineering were addressed. From the point of view of plan revision and formulation, monitoring and forecasting, the response measures to deal with climate change in the field of flood control safety and water resources security were also analyzed in this paper.

As a result of climate change, the freezing and thawing temperature of hydraulic concrete in different climate zoning is changing. The freezing and thawing tests of hydraulic concrete with different strength levels and different frost resistance levels were conducted under different low temperatures changed from -5℃ to -30℃ by using the self-made climate simulation system. An analysis chart about freezing and thawing temperature-strength grade-frost resistance design grade-maximum freezing and thawing cycles of hydraulic concrete was put forward according to the freezing and thawing tests result. The current anti-freeze system of hydraulic concrete was discussed in this paper. The indirect effects of low temperature of freezing and thawing test on greenhouse gas emission reductions were also analyzed.

The water conservancy projects under continuous drought environment are greatly influenced by shrinkage deformation and crack resistance of hydraulic concrete. The environment temperature and relative humidity are used to simulate the high temperature drought environment. The typical complex stress structure and thin wall structure of concrete were chosen to conduct test under different temperature and relative humidity. The changing laws of drying shrinkage characteristics, mechanical strength properties, anti-cracking characteristics of the aqueduct and panel concrete under different temperature and humidity conditions were revealed. And the shrinkage performance of established hydraulic structure concrete under continuous high temperature drought environment was also discussed.

The property of cementitious materials in extreme low temperature can directly affect the performance of hydraulic concrete. Cementitious materials with different water conditions were taken as the study object, the mass loss, relative dynamic modulus, flexural strength, compressive strength, frost deformation, and pore parameters properties of cementitious materials were studied under -60℃ low temperature condition. The influence rules of water contain condition of cementitious materials before freezing on the frost resistance, mechanical properties, volume deformation, and micro pore structure of cementitious materials were also revealed.

In September of 2014, the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), working closely with Working Group I of the IPCC, organized a meeting on the topic of Lessons Learnt for Climate Change Research with respect to the recently published IPCC AR5 on the campus of the University of Bern. This workshop was aimed at informal exchanges and brain-storming between scientists involved in climate change research coordination and those who served as authors on the IPCC AR5. Its main purpose was to take stock of key scientific issues identified through the IPCC assessment in WCRP’s research plans. During three days of intense presentations and discussions, the participants evaluated climate science, WCRP directions and plans, and future needs for research and assessments. Eight themes were presented to be included as the grand challenges of future climate change science, including clouds, circulation and climate sensitivity; understanding and predicting weather and climate extremes; changes in cryosphere; regional climate information; regional sea level rise and coastal impacts; water availability; biogeochemical, aerosols, atmospheric chemistry aspects; decadal timescale quantification: attribution and prediction. These themes cover the six grand challenges of WCRP and other challenging themes in climate science. This paper presents a brief introduction about this meeting in terms of the meeting report, so as to provide some references and information for the future climate change research.

A data homogenization procedure was applied to adjust systematic errors in monthly station pressure data series of 825 stations in China for the period 1951-2014. Penalized maximum F-test was applied to examine the homogeneity of the data series and metadata was used to confirm the break points. Results showed that 400 of the 825 sites were confirmed to be homogenous while the other 425 were not. For the latter, firstly, the hydrostatic model was applied to adjust the errors caused by the use of incorrect station elevation values. Then statistical approaches (mean adjustment) were applied when a physical-based correction was in vain due to lack of correct metadata. As a result, pressure data for 255 of the 425 inhomogeneous sites were homogenized by the hydrostatic model, and for additional 170 sites were homogenized with the mean adjustment method. By comparing the trend of the raw and homogenized data, it was found that after homogenization the pattern exhibits a better spacial consistency, and the east coast and the northwest parts of China show a decrease trend while the middle part an increase one.

Global climate change, which featured as increasing temperature, increased precipitation intensity and more frequent extreme weather events, will affect the security, the stability, the reliability and the durability of the engineering by impacting major engineering facilities and important auxiliary equipment, and it will have an effect on major projects’ operating efficiency and economic benefit. The climate change also influences the technical standards and engineering measures of the major projects. Major projects including the Qinghai-Tibet railway, the high-speed railway, the water resources and hydropower project are taken as typical engineering systems to describe impacts of climate change on major projects of China. The thermal balance of frozen soil environment along the Qinghai-Tibet railway (highway) is easy to break, while the environment of permafrost is difficult to recover. The surface temperature, annual precipitation, typhoons will be changed and the extreme weather and climate events will occur more frequently in the future climate, which will affect the service life of high speed railway infrastructure and the transportation order and so on. The future spatial and temporal distribution of water resources are changed due to the temperature and precipitation in the climate change background, which will influence the water allocation and scheduling, water resource utilization and hydrological risk management.

The treatment process of domestic wastewater and industry wastewater is one of strong CH₄ sources in waste treatment. According to the statistic data, IPCC model, and China local special emission factors, the characteristics of CH₄ emissions from the wastewater treatment process were predicted analyzed. The driven factors of the CH₄ emissions were also analyzed. And CH₄ emission trend and potential were predicted and analyzed according to the current situations of China wastewater treatment. The results show that CH₄ emissions from the treatments of domestic wastewater and industry wastewater is 611.0 thousand and 1623.7 thousand t respectively in 2010. Of which, CH₄ emissions of the eight major industries, accounting for more than 92%. And the emission increased gradually from 2005 to 2010. If the scenario is under the controlling management in 2020, the CH₄ emissions from the treatments of domestic wastewater and industry wastewater will be 1.0136 and 2.3393 million t, respectively. The emission reductions potential will be respectively 0.0763 and 0.2599 million t, the CH₄ emission from the treatments of domestic wastewater and industry wastewater will increase by 66% and 44% respectively relative to 2010.

2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories was adopted to estimate provincial greenhouse gas emissions from power sector in China in 1990-2014. The national emissions in 2014 increased by more than 6 times since 1990, reaching 3.80 (3.13-4.60, 95% confidence interval) billion t CO₂-eq. The changing patterns of provincial emissions were also examined in this study. Great disparity existed in the provincial emissions and the Inner Mongolia became the biggest emitter since 2011, promoting the emission center transferred from the East to West China. Based on development plans of power structure in the future, the greenhouse gas emissions from power sector in 2015-2050 were projected under different power demand scenarios. Under a high power demand scenario, projected emissions will peak in 2034 with 5.95 (4.93-7.18) billion t CO₂-eq. While under a low power demand scenario, the projected emissions will peak in 2031 with 0.77 (0.63-0.93) billion t CO₂-eq lower than those of high demand scenario.

HFC-134a has been widely used in China’s mobile air conditioning sector and thus ranks the first in the contribution of Chinese HFCs emissions that is intentionally produced and applied. Relevant legislation and regulations have been promulgated by the European Commission and United States in order to control the consumption and emission of fluorinated greenhouse gases, including HFC-134a. Choosing alternative technologies with low global warming potential (GWP), China’s mobile air conditioning will have huge emission mitigation potential in the future. Furthermore, with the diversity in demand of mobile air conditioning system, and with both the advantages and disadvantages existing in the current alternatives, such as HFO-1234yf, HFC-152a, and CO₂, it should be made that comprehensive considering of economic cost, marketization feasibility and safety risk of adopting the alternative technologies and as well as environmental standards. Developing HFC-134a phase-out policy and positively promoting research and application of substitute and alternative technologies should be done in the future, in order to actively respond to the action of accelerating the elimination of HFC-134a by international community, and to implement the action of phasing down global HFCs announced in the “US-China Joint Announcement on Climate Change”in 2014.

The 418 herdsmen families were visited using semi-structured interviews methods in Yeniugou township of Qinghai Province, Dahe and Qilian townships in Gansu Province. The herdmen’perceptions of and adaptation to climate change and extreme weather events were analyzed. Research results show that herdsmen perceptions in temperature were close to the fact but in precipitation contrary to the fact. In the perception of extreme weather events, herdsmen have a deep memory to the weather events which influence livestock production. The herdsmen have also taken different measures to deal with different climate events. Hoarding forage, building livestock housing and greenhouses, decreasing livestock, and migrant workers are the main adaptation measures. Meteorological service, loan support, and more perfect social security system will improve the ability of herdsmen adaptation to climate change.