Abstract
The spatial patterns of precipitation anomalies during five 30-yr warm periods of 691–720, 1231–1260, 1741–1770, 1921–1950, and 1981–2000 were investigated using a dryness/wetness grading dataset covering 48 stations from Chinese historical documents and 22 precipitation proxy series from natural archives. It was found that the North China Plain (approximately 35°–40°N, east of 105°E) was dry in four warm periods within the centennial warm epochs of 600–750, the Medieval Warm Period (about 900–1300) and after 1900. A wet condition prevailed over most of China during 1741–1770, a 30-yr warm peak that occurred during the Little Ice Age (about 1650–1850). The spatial pattern of the precipitation anomaly in 1981–2000 over East China (25°-40°N, east of 105°E) is roughly consistent with that in 1231–1260, but a difference in the precipitation anomaly appeared over the Tibetan Plateau. The spatial patterns of the precipitation anomalies over China varied between all five 30-yr warm periods, which implies that the matching pattern between temperature and precipitation change is multiform, and the precipitation anomaly could be positive or negative when a decadal warm climate occurs in different climate epochs. This result may provide a primary reference for the mechanism detection and climate simulation of the precipitation anomaly of the future warm climate.
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Supported by the Innovation Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (KZCX2-YW-Q1-01, XDA05080100), National Basic Research and Development (973) Program of China (2010CB950100), National Science and Technology Support Program of China (2007BAC03A01), and National Natural Science Foundation of China (41071029).
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Hao, Z., Zheng, J., Ge, Q. et al. Spatial patterns of precipitation anomalies for 30-yr warm periods in China during the past 2000 years. Acta Meteorol Sin 26, 278–288 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13351-012-0302-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13351-012-0302-1