Yin, Hong, Sun, Ying, Wan, Hui, Zhang, Xuebin, Lu, Chunhui

International Journal of Climatology

Published date May 16, 2016

Detection of anthropogenic influence on the intensity of extreme temperatures in China

  • Detects the anthropogenic (ANT) influence on the intensity of temperature extremes in China over the period 1958–2012 using the newest homogenized daily observation data set and multi-model simulations from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5)
  • Applies an optimal fingerprinting method to compare spatial–temporal changes in the intensity of temperature extremes
  • Finds that for China as a whole, the ANT influence can be robustly detected in all four extreme indices tested: the warmest days and nights, and the coldest days and nights
  • Finds that the ANT signal is also clearly separable from the response to natural-only (NAT) forcing in the two-signal analyses
  • Finds that the NAT signal was detectable for the warmest night TNx but not for other indices
  • Finds that at smaller regional scales for Eastern and Western China, the ANT signals were also clearly detected in the changes of temperature extremes
  • Results update a previous work and confirm that the human influence can be robustly detected in the changes of extreme temperature intensity in China