Spatiotemporal characteristics of solar drought events in China

doi:10.12006/j.issn.1673-1719.2025.167

Abstract

Abstract:

Sunshine duration is an important indicator for monitoring solar energy resources and plays a key role in climate change and renewable energy assessment. To explore the spatiotemporal variation characteristics of solar drought events in China under the background of global warming, this study is based on daily sunshine duration data from 2242 meteorological stations covering China from 1981 to 2020. It employs methods such as the Sen’s slope method and the Mann-Kendall non-parametric test, the Mann-Kendall mutation test, wavelet analysis, and K-means clustering for systematic analysis. The findings reveal that the number of no-sunshine days, the number of low-sunshine days, the frequency of consecutive no-sunshine days, and the maximum no-sunshine duration all show a significant upward trend. The mutation test indicates that this trend has significantly strengthened after 2000. Solar drought events have a main cycle of 2-6 years, with significant periodic variations in different periods. They show a significant increasing trend from the North China Plain to the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. The proportion of stations with a significant increase in frequency of no-sunshine days, low-sunshine days, consecutive no-sunshine days, and consecutive low-sunshine days all reaches more than 22%. Although the proportion of stations with a significant increase in the maximum no-sunshine duration and the maximum low-sunshine duration is relatively low, their spatial aggregation has been enhanced. The regions with solar drought events in China are mainly concentrated in the Sichuan Basin and the eastern part of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau (extreme solar drought area), the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River (severe solar drought area), and the North China Plain (moderate solar drought area), presenting an overall spatial differentiation pattern of “low in the west and high in the east, low in the north and high in the south”. This study can provide a scientific basis for the prediction and response to solar drought events in China under the background of climate change.

Key words: Sunshine duration, Solar drought events, No-sunshine days, Low-sunshine days

HA Si, WANG Yang, CHAO Qing-Chen, GUO En-Liang, HAN Xin-Yang, LIU Qing, ZOU Yi-Chao, ZHENG Yu-Ying. Spatiotemporal characteristics of solar drought events in China[J]. Climate Change Research, 2025, 21(6): 742-752.

Figures/Tables 9

Table 1 Definition of solar drought event indicators

Fig. 1 Inter-annual variation trend of solar drought events in China from 1981 to 2020

Fig. 2 MK mutation test results of solar drought events in China from 1981 to 2020

Fig. 3 Distribution of solar drought event indicators in China for each season from 1981 to 2020

Fig. 4 Morlet wavelet transform chart of solar drought events in China from 1981 to 2020

Fig. 5 Spatial distribution of solar drought event indicators in China from 1981 to 2020

Fig. 6 Spatial distribution of variation trends for solar drought event indicators in China from 1981 to 2020

Table 2 Percentage of stations by trend significance test results for 6 indicators for solar drought events in China from 1981 to 2020

Fig. 7 Spatial cluster distribution of solar drought events in China from 1981 to 2020

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