Abstract
According to observational daily temperature data from the meteorological stations during 1971–2020, the variations of the extreme temperature event in the Mount Qomolangma (also known as Mount Everest) region in China have been analyzed using statistical methods. The extreme temperature indices recommended by the World Meteorological Organization are selected to describe the extreme temperature event. The RClimDEX 1.0 software is used to calculate the extreme temperature indices. There are no tropical nights, and just three summer days at the last 50 years. The frost days are the main extreme temperature events all year round. The temperature in the north slope is more extreme than that in the south slope of the Mount Qomolangma. There is remarkable decadal variation for the extreme temperature indices except diurnal temperature range. There are the warm extremes increasing, however, the cold extremes decreasing with the decadal lapse, which is more remarkable into the 21th century. The tendencies for the extreme temperature indices in the north slope are consistent with those in the south slope. There are statistically significant trends for most extreme temperature indices during the study period. It shows that the warm extremes would be more prominent in the future with the global continued warming. The abrupt changes of the extreme temperature index have occurred mainly in the 20th century especially from the mid to late 1980s and 1990s. The periodic changes in the south slope do not synchronize those in the north slope for the most extreme temperature indices. It is different for most extreme temperature indices between the south and north slope, which has demonstrated that the regional or local changes are not neglectable for extreme temperature research. The results of this study are also the consistent response of extreme temperature event to the global warming.
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This research was supported by the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research (STEP) program (Grant No. 2019QZKK0105) and the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. XDA19070401).
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WANG Shun-jiu: conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, methodology, writing-original draft, writing-review and editing.
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Wang, Sj. Variations of extreme temperature in the Mount Qomolangma region in China during 1971–2020. J. Mt. Sci. 20, 3488–3499 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-023-8297-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-023-8297-x