Characteristics of the widespread extreme cold and warm days over China in winter

doi:10.12006/j.issn.1673-1719.2022.272

Abstract

Abstract:

Using the daily observational dataset of the surface air temperature in China from 1961 to 2020, and considering their probability density distribution and spatial extent, three kinds of temperature extremes were defined: the spatially consistent cold days, spatially consistent warm days, and extreme days with north-south dipole temperature in China during winter. The results show that a total of 960 days of the winter temperature extremes occurred in China. Among them, there are 358 consistent cold days, 271 consistent warm days, and 331 extreme days with north-south dipole temperature. Before the 21st century, the days and intensities of the consistent cold days showed decreasing and weakening trends respectively, and the cold days of winter and February decreased abruptly in the 1980s. Meanwhile, increasing and strengthening characteristics can be seen in consistent warm days, but only consistent warm days in December increased abruptly in the late 1970s. The decline (rise) of spatially consistent cold (warm) days during this period was most affected by changes of February. After entering the 21st century, it was the variations of the spatially consistent cold and warm days in January that led to the small increase of cold days and the increase of warm days in winter. Except for December, extreme days with north-south dipole temperature in winter and other months all showed abrupt decline in the 1970s and 1980s. Before the 2010s, the decline of the extreme days with north-south dipole temperature in winter was mainly influenced by the variation in February, after then, the variation in January played a dominant role.

Key words: Temperature extremes, Spatially consistent temperature extremes, North-south dipole temperature extremes, Spatiotemporal variation

WANG Wei, WANG Huan, ZUO Zhi-Yan. Characteristics of the widespread extreme cold and warm days over China in winter[J]. Climate Change Research, 2023, 19(4): 418-430.

Figures/Tables 11

Table 1 Frequency of extreme days in each month of winter from 1961 to 2019 d

Fig. 1 Surface air temperature (SAT) anomalies when spatially consistent extreme cold days (a), warm days (b), and extreme days with north-south dipole temperature (c) occurred in the winters from 1961 to 2019 (The hatched areas indicate the confidence level exceeds 95% using a Student’s test), and the spatial distribution of the first leading EOF mode for the daily SAT anomalies when the extreme days with north-south dipole temperature occurred (d)

Fig. 2 Distribution of the dates and intensities of the spatially consistent extreme cold days from 1961 to 2019

Fig. 3 Decadal variations of the days and cumulative intensities of the spatially consistent extreme cold days in whole winter (a), December (b), January (c) and February (d) from 1961 to 2019, and their percentages of the days (e) and cumulative intensities (f) in winter

Fig. 4 Mann-Kendall statistical curves of the spatially consistent extreme cold days in whole winter (a), December (b), January (c) and February (d) from 1961 to 2019. (The black dash line denotes the significance level of α=0.05)

Fig. 5 Distribution of dates and intensities of the spatially consistent extreme warm days from 1961 to 2019

Fig. 6 Decadal variations of the days and cumulative intensities of spatially consistent extreme warm days in whole winter (a), December (b), January (c) and February (d) from 1961 to 2019, and their percentage of days (e) and cumulative intensities (f) in winter

Fig. 7 Mann-Kendall statistical curves of the spatially consistent extreme warm days in whole winter (a), December (b), January (c) and February (d) from 1961 to 2019. (The black dash line denotes the significance level of α=0.05)

Fig. 8 Distribution of dates and intensities of extreme days with north-south dipole temperature from 1961 to 2019

Fig. 9 Decadal variations of the days and cumulative intensities of extreme days with north-south dipole temperature in whole winter (a), December (b), January (c) and February (d) from 1961 to 2019, and their percentage of days (e) and cumulative intensities (f) in winter

Fig. 10 Mann-Kendall statistical curves of extreme days with north-south dipole temperature in whole winter (a), December (b), January (c) and February (d) from 1961 to 2019. (The black dash line denotes the significance level of α=0.05)

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