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  • Detection, Attribution, and Projection of Regional Extreme Weather and Climate Events in China
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CMIP6 Projections of the “Warming-Wetting” Trend in Northwest China and Related Extreme Events Based on Observational Constraints

Journal of Meteorological Research volume 36, pages 239–250 (2022)Cite this article

Abstract

This study presents the improved future projections of the climate “warming—wetting” trend and climate extremes with different return periods in Northwest China at different global warming levels. The projections are based on the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6) simulations constrained by the high-resolution observation dataset using the equidistant cumulative distribution functions (EDCDF) method. The results indicate that the climate will experience continuous warming and wetting as reflected by average temperature and total precipitation over Northwest China, especially under the scenario of the shared socioeconomic pathway 5—representative concentration pathway 8.5 (SSP5–8.5). Most parts of Northwest China will continue to warm in the future more than global average. Spatially, areas with prominent “warming—wetting” trends will be mainly distributed in western Northwest China. It is worth noting that extreme heat and precipitation events will also increase with the climate warming and wetting over Northwest China. Moreover, frequencies of rarer extreme events will increase more apparently than weaker extreme events and frequency increase of extreme heat events responds to global warming faster than that of extreme precipitation events. Limiting global warming within 2°C relative to 1850–1900 would slowdown the increase in extreme heat events and considerably suppress the increase in frequencies of extreme precipitation events, especially the rare (i.e., 50-yr) extreme events.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the World Climate Research Program’s Working Group on Coupled Modeling and thank the climate modeling groups for producing and sharing their model outputs.

Funding

Supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFC1507700).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, 100081, China

    Qian Wang & Panmao Zhai

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Qian Wang

Authors
  1. Qian Wang
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  2. Panmao Zhai
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Correspondence to Panmao Zhai.

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Wang, Q., Zhai, P. CMIP6 Projections of the “Warming-Wetting” Trend in Northwest China and Related Extreme Events Based on Observational Constraints. J Meteorol Res 36, 239–250 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13351-022-1157-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13351-022-1157-8

Key words

  • Northwest China
  • projection
  • precipitation
  • temperature
  • extreme events