Abstract
As an important part of the regional environment, the wet-dry climate condition is determined by precipitation and potential evapotranspiration (expressed as ET o). Based on weather station data, this study first calculated ET o by using the FAO56 Penman-Monteith model. Then, the dryness index K (ratio of ET o to precipitation) was used to study the spatio-temporal variation of the wet-dry condition in China from 1961 to 2015; moreover, dominant climatic factors of the wet-dry condition change were discussed. The annual precipitation and ET o of the Qinling-Huaihe line were close to a balance (K≈1.0). The annual precipitation in most areas exceeded the ET o in the south of this line and the east of Hengduan Mountains (K<1.0), where the climate is wet. Furthermore, the precipitation in the northwest inland areas of China, where the climate is dry, was markedly lower than ET o (K≥4.0). The overall annual K of China fluctuated around the 55-year mean and its linear trend was not significant. However, a relatively wet period of about 10 yr (1987–1996) was recorded. The overall annual K of China showed strong cyclicality on the time scale of 3, 7–8, 11 and 26–28 yr, and regional differences of the annual K trends and cyclicality were large. The degrees of wetness in the Northwest China and western Qinghai-Tibet Plateau were substantially increased, whereas the degrees of dryness in the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, Sichuan Basin, and Loess Plateau were markedly increased. The linear trend of the annual K in most regions of China was not significant, and the annual K of most areas in China showed strong cyclicality on the 8–14 yr time scale. Precipitation was the dominant factor of wet-dry condition change in most areas, especially in North China, where the annual K change was highly correlated with precipitation.
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Acknowledgements
We thank anonymous reviewers for their detailed evaluation and constructive suggestions on the manuscript. This work was supported by the Key Projects of National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41530749), the Youth Projects of National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41501202 & 41701100), and the Science and Technology Project of Sichuan Provincial Department of Education (Grant No. 15ZB0023).
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Yuan, Q., Wu, S., Dai, E. et al. Spatio-temporal variation of the wet-dry conditions from 1961 to 2015 in China. Sci. China Earth Sci. 60, 2041–2050 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-017-9097-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-017-9097-1