Science Source
Liu, Binhui, Henderson, Mark, Xu, Ming, Zhang, Yandong
International Journal of Climatology
Published date June 5, 2017

Observed changes in precipitation on the wettest days of the year in China, 1960–2000

  • States that previous studies have suggested that extreme precipitation events accounted for a disproportionate share of the nearly 2% increase in precipitation in China over the period of 1960–2000
  • Finds that:
    • (10 wettest days)
      • trends of precipitation on the 10 wettest days are generally proportional to changes in annual total precipitation
      • a disproportionate increase is observed in southwest China
      • while the greatest absolute increase in precipitation on the wettest 10 days is seen in east China, the trend as a percentage of the annual total is not statistically significant
      • in the other six climate regions, the annual total rainfall is increasing at a proportionally greater rate than the 10 wettest days
    • (5 wettest days)
      • the changes in precipitation on the five wettest days show increasing trends both nationally and for most of the climate regions
      • the greatest absolute increase in precipitation on the wettest five days is seen in east China in both summer and winter half-years
      • only in southwest China during the summer half-year do we see a significant, disproportional increase in the precipitation falling on the 5 wettest days
  • Finds that, nationally, there has been an increasing trend in the frequency of precipitation exceeding the long-term mean 97.5th percentile and 99th percentile values
  • Concludes that although the annual increasing precipitation on the 10 wettest days corresponds with a similar increase in water vapour pressure in China nationally, regional results suggest that change in humidity is not the only factor that influences the changes in heavy precipitation

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