PROGRESS IN GEOGRAPHY ›› 2013, Vol. 32 ›› Issue (6): 887-896.doi: 10.11820/dlkxjz.2013.06.005

• Global Change • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Regionalization of temperature changes in China and characteristics of temperature in different regions during 1951-2010

HAN Cuihua1,2, HAO Zhixin1, ZHENG Jingyun1   

  1. 1. Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China;
    2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
  • Received:2013-01-01 Revised:2013-05-01 Online:2013-06-25 Published:2013-06-25

Abstract: Based on daily meteorological dataset of 623 stations during 1951-2010 in China, using the orthogonal rotational factor analysis, we studied of regionalization of the trends of annual, summer semiannual, and winter semiannual temperature changes for the four 30-year time periods, 1951-1980, 1961-1990, 1961-2000, and 1971-2010. The differences among the four periods of the regionalization were analyzed. The results show that China can be divided into 8 regions based on the characteristics of both annual and summer semiannual temperature changes, and the boundaries of the regions were stable during 1951-2010; the country can be divided into 7 regions based on the characteristics of winter semiannual temperature changes, and the boundaries of the regions showed clear changes in every 30-year time period. The regionalization boundaries of winter semiannual temperature changes showed high level of consistency with those of annual temperature changes. So winter semiannual temperature changes can substitute annual temperature changes for historical climate reconstruction. In addition, the characteristics of temperature changes in the different regions of China were analyzed. The results indicated that the trend of temperature change was overall upward, with a remarkable rate of 0.30℃/10a in Northeast and a rate of 0.13℃/10a in South China. Temperature increases of different regions were not in the same pace. For example, a significant warming trend in Northeast and Yunnan-Tibet Plateau was in 1961-1990, while warming trends of other regions were in 1971-2000 and 1981-2010. The winter semiannual temperatures had more dramatic increases than summer semiannual temperatures.

Key words: China, orthogonal rotational factor analysis, regionalization, temperature changes