Abstract
Using 24 proxy temperature series, the rates of temperature change in China are analyzed at the 30- to 100-year scales for the past 2000 years and at the 10-year scale for the past 500 years. The results show that, at the 100-year scale, the warming rate for the whole of China in the 20th century was only 0.6±1.6°C/100 a (interval at the 95% confidence level, which is used hereafter), while the peak warming rate for the period from the Little Ice Age (LIA) to the 20th century reached 1.1±1.2°C/100 a, which was the greatest in the past 500 years and probably the past 2000 years. At the 30-year scale, warming in the 20th century was quite notable, but the peak rate was still less than rates for previous periods, such as the rapid warming from the LIA to the 20th century and from the 270s–290s to 300s–320s. At the 10-year scale, the warming in the late 20th century was very evident, but it might not be unusual in the context of warming over the past 500 years. The exact timing, duration and magnitude of the warming peaks varied from region to region at all scales. The peak rates of the 100-year scale warming in the AD 180s–350s in northeastern China as well as those in the 260s–410s and 500s–660s in Tibet were all greater than those from the mid-19th to 20th century. Meanwhile, the rates of the most rapid cooling at scales of 30 to 100 years in the LIA were prominent, but they were also not unprecedented in the last 2000 years. At the 10-year scale, for the whole of China, the most rapid decadal cooling in the 20th century was from the 1940s to 1950s with a rate of −0.3±0.6°C/10 a, which was similar to rates for periods before the 20th century. For all regions, the rates of most rapid cooling in the 20th century were all less than those for previous periods.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP). PAGES Science Plan and Implementation Strategy, Rep. 57. Stockholm: IGBP Secr., 2009. 3–9
Mann M E, Zhang Z H, Hughes M K, et al. Proxy-based reconstructions of hemispheric and global surface temperature variations over the past two millennia. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 2008, 105: 13252–13257
Mann M E, Zhang Z H, Rutherford S, et al. Global signatures and dynamical origins of the Little Ice Age and Medieval climate anomaly. Science, 2009, 326: 1256–1260
Jones P D, Briffa K R, Osborn T J, et al. High-resolution palaeoclimatology of the last millennium: A review of current status and future prospects. Holocene, 2009, 19: 3–49
National Research Council (NRC). Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2000 Years, Washington D C: The National Academies Press, 2006
Jansen E, Overpeck J, Briffa K R, et al. Palaeoclimate. In: Solomon S, Qing D, Manning M, et al, eds. Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 463–497
Trenberth K E, Jones P D, Ambenje P, et al. Observations: Surface and Atmospheric Climate Change. In: Solomon S, Qing D, Manning M, et al, eds. Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 235–336
Wang S W, Ye J L, Gong D Y. Climate in China during the Little Ice Age (in Chinese). Quat Sci, 1998, 25: 54–64
Zheng J Y, Zheng S Z. An analysis on cold/warm and dry/wet in Shandong Province during historical times (in Chinese). Acta Geogr Sin, 1993, 48: 348–357
Ge Q S, Zheng J Y, Fang X Q, et al. Winter half-year temperature reconstruction for the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and Yangtze River, China, during the past 2000 years. Holocene, 2003, 13: 933–940
Wang R S, Wang S W. Reconstruction of winter temperature in east China during the last 500 years using historical documents (in Chinese). Acta Meteorol Sin, 1990, 48: 180–189
Shen X Y, Chen J Q. Grain production and climatic variation in Taihu Lake Basin (in Chinese). Sci Geogr Sin, 1991, 11: 207–212
Zhang D E. Winter temperature changes during the last 500 years in south China. Chin Sci Bull, 1980, 25: 497–500
Zheng S Z. Climate and its effect on food production during the Little Ice Age in Guangdong Province. Chin Sci Bull, 1982, 27: 1081–1084
Ge Q S, Zheng J Y, Tian Y Y, et al. Coherence of climatic reconstruction from historical documents in China by different studies. Int J Climatol, 2008, 28: 1007–1024
Zhu H F, Zheng Y H, Shao X M, et al. Millennial temperature reconstruction based on tree-ring widths of Qilian juniper from Wulan, Qinghai Province, China. Chin Sci Bull, 2008, 53: 3914–3920
Liu X H, Shao X M, Zhao L J, et al. Dendroclimatic temperature record derived from tree-ring width and stable carbon isotope chronologies in the middle Qilian Mountain, China. Arct Antarct Alp Res, 2007, 39: 651–657
Tan M, Liu T S, Hou J Z, et al. Cyclic rapid warming on centennial-scale revealed by a 2650-year stalagmite record of warm season temperature. Geophys Res Lett, 2003, 30: 1617, doi: 10.1029/2003. GL 017352
Thompson L G, Mosley-Thompson E, Brecher H, et al. Abrupt tropical climate change: past and present. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 2006, 103: 10536–10543
Hong Y T, Jiang H B, Liu T S, et al. Response of climate to solar forcing recorded in a 6000-year δ 18O time-series of Chinese peat cellulose. Holocene, 2000, 10: 1–7
Xu Q H, Xiao J L, Toshio N, et al. Quantitative reconstructed climatic changes of Daihai Basin by pollen data (in Chinese). Mar Geol Quat Geol, 2003, 23: 99–108
Xu H, Hong Y T, Lin Q H, et al. Temperature variations in the past 6000 years inferred from δ 18O of peat cellulose from Hongyuan, China. Chin Sci Bull, 2002, 47: 1578–1584
Shen J. Zhang E L, Xia W L. Records from lake sediments of the Qinghai Lake to mirror climatic and environmental changes of the past about 1000 years (in Chinese). Quat Sci, 2001, 21: 508–513
Qiang M R, Chen F H, Zhang J W, et al. Climatic changes documented by stable isotopes of sedimentary carbonate in Lake Sugan, northeastern Tibetan Plateau of China, since 2 ka BP. Chin Sci Bull, 2005, 50: 1930–1939
Ge Q S, Zheng J Y, Hao Z X, et al. Temperature variation through 2000 years in China: An uncertainty analysis of reconstruction and regional difference. Geophys Res Lett, 2010, 37: L03703. doi: 10. 1029/2009GL041281
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ge, Q., Zhang, X., Hao, Z. et al. Rates of temperature change in China during the past 2000 years. Sci. China Earth Sci. 54, 1627–1634 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-011-4257-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-011-4257-3