Changes in temperature and precipitation extremes during 1959–2008 in Shanxi, China

Abstract

A complete picture of changes in climate extremes has been presented for Shanxi Province, China using data from all 61 available stations. The results reveal large spatial coherence of trends for the majority of extremes, especially for temperature extremes. Significant and symmetric increasing trends of the annual mean maximum and mean minimum temperatures (TXam, TNam) are detected over the past 50 years. Significant positive trends are detected for warm days and nights (TX90p, TN90p), the highest and lowest maximum and minimum temperatures (TXx, TXn, TNx, TNn), and the growing season length (GSL). Significant negative trends are revealed for cold days and nights (TX10p, TN10p) and frost days (FD). Significant decreases are found in the number of heavy precipitation days (R10mm) and wet day precipitation (PRCPTOT). Although Shanxi and the northern half of North China Plain (NNCP) have been grouped into the North China region and assessed together in previous studies for China, the changes in climate extremes in the NNCP have some pronounced differences in comparison with Shanxi. Noticeably, the increase of the TNam is at a rate nearly three times that of the TXam during 1959–2008 over the NNCP. The warming for the nighttime indices TN90p, TN10p, TNx, and TNn is stronger, but the warming for the daytime indices TX10p, TX90p, and TXx is weaker in the NNCP. There is no significant decrease for R10mm and PRCPTOT in the NNCP.