Abstract
In light of the observed climate changes in recent decades over eastern China, we studied the changes in spring phenophases of woody plants observed at 16-stations during 1963–1996, and explored the possible link between the spring phenophases changes and climate changes before the phenophase onset. It is found that, in the region north of 33∘N (including Northeast, North China and the lower reaches of the Huaihe River), the phenophase advanced 1.1–4.3 days per decade for early spring and 1.4–5.4 days per decade for late spring, but in the eastern part of the southwest China it was dealyed by 2.9–6.9 days per decade in early spring and 2.4–6.2 days per decade in late spring. One outstanding feature is identified in Guangzhou in south China, where significant advance of 7.5 days per decade in early spring and delay of 4.6 days per decade in late spring were detected. Statistically siginficant correlation was found between the changes of spring phenophase and the temperatures of one or several months before the phenophase onset. The relationship between the trend of phenophase change and temperature change was highly non-linear (more sensitivity to cooling than to warming) and reached an asymptote 0.5∘C per decade, which may have implication in the responses of the ecosystem in a future global warming scenario. In addition, we also examined the link between the spring phenophase, and length and mean temperature of the growing season, and the analyses suggested that they were highly correlated as well.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abu-Asab, M. S., Peterson, P. M., Shetler, S. G., and Orli, S. S.: 2001, ‘Earlier plant flowering in spring as a response to global warming in the Washington, DC, area’, Biodiversity and Conservation 10, 597–612.
Beaubien, E. G. and Freeland, H. J.: 2000, ‘Spring phenology trends in Alberta, Canada: Links to ocean temperature’, Int. J. Biometeorol. 44, 53–59.
Both, C. and Visser, M. E.: 2001, ‘Adjustment to climate change is constrained by arrival date in a long-distance migrant bird’, Nature 411, 296–298.
Bradley, N. L., Leopold, A. C., Ross, J., and Wellington, H.: 1999, ‘Phenological changes reflect climate change in Wisconsin’, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 96, 9701–9704.
Chen, X., Tan, Z., Schwartz, M., and Xu, C.: 2000. ‘Determining the growing season of land vegetation on the basis of plant phenology and satellite data in Northern China’, International Journal of Biometeorology 44, 97–101.
Chen, X., Xu, C., and Tan, Z.: 2001, ‘An analysis of relationships among plant community phenology and season metrics of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index in the northern part of the monsoon region of China’, International Journal of Biometeorology 45, 170–177.
Chen, X. and Zhang, F.: 2001, ‘Spring phenological Change in Beijing in the Last 50 years and its response to the climate changes’, Chinese Journal of Agrometeorology 22, 1–5 (in Chinese).
Chmielewsky, F. M. and Roetzer, T.: 2001, ‘Responses of tree phenology to climate change across Europe’, Agr. Forest Meteorol. 108, 101–112.
Chu, K.-C. and Wan, M.: 1973, Phenology, Beijing, Science Press, pp. 35–39 (in Chinese).
Crick, H. Q. P., Dudley, C., Glue, D. E., and Thomson, D. L.: 1997, ‘UK birds are laying eggs earlier’, Nature 388, 526.
Dose, V. and Menzel, A.: 2004, ‘Bayesian analysis of climate change impacts in phenology’, Glob. Change Biol. 10, 259–272.
Edit committee of Atlas of People's Republic of China: 1984, Atlas of People's Republic of China, The Sinomap Press, Beijing, p. 12 (in chinese).
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): 2001, Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, USA, pp. 244–252.
Lieth, H. and Schwartz, M. D.: 1997, Phenology in seasonal climates I, Backhuys Publishers, Leiden, the Netherlands, pp. 1–21.
Lieth, H.: 1974, Phenology and Seasonality Modelling, Berlin, Heidelberg and New York, Springer-Verlag, pp. 4–5.
Menzel, A. and Fabian, P.: 1999, ‘Growing season extended in Europe’, Nature 397, 659.
Menzel, A., Estrella, N., and Fabian, P.: 2001, ‘Spatial and temporal variability of the phenological seasons in Germany from 1951–1996’, Glob. Change Biol. 7, 657–666.
Menzel, A., Jakobi, G., Ahas, R., Scheifinger, H., and Estrella, N.: 2003, ‘Variations of the climatological growing season (1951–2000) in Germany compared with other countries’, Int. J. Climatol. 23, 793–812.
Myneni, R. B., Keeling, C. D., Tucker, C. J., Asrar, G., and Nemani, R. R.: 1997, ‘Increased plant growth in the northern high latitudes from 1981 to 1991’, Nature 386, 698–702.
Parmesan, C. and Yohe, G.: 2003, ‘A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural systems’, Nature 421, 37–42.
Peñuelas, J. and Filella, I.: 2001, ‘Responses to a Warming World ’, Science 294, 793–794.
Peñuelas, J., Filella, I., and Comas, P.: 2002, ‘Changed plant and animal life cycles from 1952 to 2000 in the Mediterranean region’, Glob. Change Biol. 8, 531–544.
Root, T. L., Price, J. T., Hall, K. R., Schneider, S. H., Rosenzweig, C., and Pounds, A.: 2003, ‘Fingerprints of global warming on wild animals and plants’, Nature 421, 57–60.
Schwartz, M. D. and Reiter, B. E.: 2000, ‘Changes in North American spring’, Int. J. Climatol 20, 929–932.
Schwartz, M. D. and Chen, X.: 2002, ‘Examining the onset of spring in China’, Climate Research 21, 157–164.
Seemann, J., Chirkov, Y. I., Lomas, J., and Primault, B.: 1979, Agrometeorology, Berlin, Heidelberg and New York, Springer-Verlag, pp. 111–114.
Sha, W., Shao, X., and Huang, M.: 2002, ‘Climate warming and its impact on natural regional boundaries in China in the 1980s’, Sci. China, Ser. D 45, 1099–1113.
Scheifinger, H., Menzel, A., Koch, E., and Peter, Ch.: 2003, ‘Trends of spring time frost events and phenological dates in Central Europe’, Theor. Appl. Climatol. 74, 41–51.
Walther, G. R.: 2004, ‘Plants in a Warmer World ’, Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics 6, 169–185.
Walther, G. R., Post, E., Convey, P., Menzel, A., Parmesan, C., Beebee, T. J. C., Fromentin, J. M., Hoegh-Guldberg, O., and Bairlein, F.: 2002, ‘Ecological responses to recent climate change’, Nature 416, 389–395.
Wan, M.: 1986, Natural Phenological Calender in China, Science Press, Beijing, 421 pp (in Chinese).
Wan, M.: 1987, Natural Phenological Calender in China (Continued), Science Press, Beijing, 437 pp (in Chinese).
Zhang, F.: 1985, Phenology, China Meteorological Press, Beijing, 57–73 (in chinese).
Zhang, F. and Jiang, A.: 1996, ‘A review of studies on the phenology in China’, Phenology and seasonality 1, 71–78.
Zheng, J., Ge, Q., and Hao, Z.: 2002, ‘Impacts of climate warming on plants phenophases in China for the last 40 years’, Chinese Sci. Bull. 47, 1826–1831.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Open Access This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0 ), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
About this article
Cite this article
Zheng, J., Ge, Q., Hao, Z. et al. Spring Phenophases in Recent Decades Over Eastern China and Its Possible Link to Climate Changes. Climatic Change 77, 449–462 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-005-9038-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-005-9038-6