Changes of rainfall and its possible reasons in the Nansi Lake Basin, China

Abstract

This study investigates the changes of rainfall patterns along with the underlying reasons in the Nansi Lake Basin (NLB), China during 1960–2009. Results show that the annual rainfall increases from the northwest to the southeast of the NLB. From the temporal variation perspective, annual rainfall decreases slightly in the majority of stations. Furthermore, in spite of no pronounced trends are detected in all stations, the annual rainfall series fluctuate intensely, and present step changes around the year of 1974 and 2002. This change pattern of rainfall is verified by the approximately wet–dry–wet phase pattern, which is exhibited in the standardized departures of annual rainfall series, during the three sub-periods divided by the pre-obtained two change years. In particular, the parametric t test demonstrate that the step change in 2002 is significant. The variations in the rainy season (RS, June–September) rainfall contributed mostly to the changes in the annual rainfall, and a high similarity of change patterns between the RS and annual rainfall is also observed. The long term mean RS and annual rainfall decreases largely from the sub-period of 1960–1974 to 1974–2002, and increased largely from the sub-period of 1974–2002 to 2002–2009 in the NLB. Besides, various elements, such as the summer East Asian summer monsoon and summer Pacific decadal oscillation, may together lead to the step changes in summer rainfall over our study area.