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Regional heatwaves in china: a cluster analysis

Climate Dynamics volume 50, pages 1901–1917 (2018)Cite this article

An Erratum to this article was published on 19 August 2017

This article has been updated

Abstract

With the consideration of spatial extension of heatwave events, two kind of regional heatwaves using absolute and relative thresholds, namely RHWs-A and RHWs-R, are investigated during 1959–2013. The temperature data is derived from the daily maximum temperatures (DMTs) of 587 stations in China. Totally 298 RHWs-A and 374 RHWs-R are identified during the past 55 years, and both of them are growing more frequent since the mid-1980s. By utilizing the cluster analysis, several typical spatial distributions of RHWs-A/RHWs-R are obtained. For RHWs-A, there are three clusters covering the southeastern, northwestern China and the lower reaches of Yangtze River, of which the southeastern cluster groups the most heatwaves. For RHWs-R, there are seven clusters distributed throughout the whole regions of China. The clusters in the northwestern and northeastern China are more stable than others for both RHWs-A and RHWs-R, and the northern clusters are of larger intensity than that of the southern ones. All RHWs-A/RHWs-R are accompanied by the anomalous high systems along with the reduced soil moisture. The southern clusters are controlled by Northwestern Pacific subtropical high (WPSH), and the northern ones are influenced by the mid-latitude high systems. The influences of atmospheric circulations and soil moisture on regional heatwaves are further demonstrated by two case analyses of the severe RHW-A in 2003 and the RHW-R in 2013.

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  • 19 August 2017

    An erratum to this article has been published.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41375075, 91425304, and 41575099). This work is also supported by the Chinese Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center for Climate Change. Observational data was provided by the China Meteorological Administration (CMA).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing University, 163 Xianlin Road, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Pinya Wang, Jianping Tang, Shuyu Wang & Juan Fang

  2. Institute for Climate and Global Change Research, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Pinya Wang, Jianping Tang & Shuyu Wang

  3. CMA-NJU Joint Laboratory for Climate Prediction Studies, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Pinya Wang, Jianping Tang & Shuyu Wang

  4. Chongqing Climate Center, Chongqing, 401147, China

    Xinning Dong

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  1. Pinya Wang
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  2. Jianping Tang
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  3. Shuyu Wang
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  4. Xinning Dong
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  5. Juan Fang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jianping Tang.

Additional information

In the original publication of this article, the Fig. 2, Fig. 3, Fig. 8, Fig. 10–14 contains odd black lines; this error has now been corrected.

An erratum to this article is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-017-3815-6.

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Wang, P., Tang, J., Wang, S. et al. Regional heatwaves in china: a cluster analysis. Clim Dyn 50, 1901–1917 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-017-3728-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-017-3728-4

Keywords

  • Heat Waves
  • Daily Maximum Temperature (DMTs)
  • Northern Cluster
  • Heatwave Conditions
  • Soil Moisture Anomalies