Inconsistent variation of return periods of temperature extremum in China and its projection based on CMIP6 results

Xueyuan Kuang,Danqing Huang,Ying Huang

doi:10.1007/s42452-021-04863-3

Abstract

Increasingly extreme temperature events under global warming can have considerable impacts on sectors such as industrial activities, health, and transportation, suggesting that risk for these kinds of events under climate change and its regional sensitivity should be reassessed. In this study, the observation and multi-model simulations from CMIP6 are comprehensively used to explore the regional differences of the extreme temperature response to climate change from the perspective of return period (RP). The Gumbel model of generalized extremum distribution is applied to estimate the RP for the annual extremum of temperature based on Gaussian distribution of daily temperature. The analysis on the observation in selected three sites indicates that the regional inconsistency of RP variation is not only existed in extreme high temperature (HTx) but also in low temperature (LTn) during the past several decades. The annual amplitude of temperature extremum in the Northeast China is enlarged with summer becoming hotter and winter becoming colder while the opposite situation is detected in Huang-Huai River Basin with cooler summer and relatively stable winter, and South China is characterized by hotter summer and slight warmer winter. From the spatial distribution of the HTx and LTn variations of fix RP, it is found that the Northeast China and Jiang-Huai River Basin is the most sensitive areas, respectively, in the response of extreme low temperature and high temperature to global warming. However, the regional inconsistency of the extreme temperature change is only observed under SSP1-2.6 scenario in the CMIP6 simulation but gradually disappeared from SSP2-4.5 to SSP5-8.5.

Highlights

Warm and cold extremes have been frequently occurred during recent several decades under global warming [4, 15, 23, 28, 32, 40]
The analysis on the observed data in three selected sites indicates that the regional inconsistency of return period (RP) variation is detected in highest value of daily maximum temperature (HTx) and in lowest value of daily minimum temperature (LTn) during the past several decades
The annual amplitude of extreme temperature in Northeast China is enlarged with summer becoming hotter and winter becoming colder while the different situation is detected in Huang-Huai River Basin with cooler summer and relatively stable winter, and South China is characterized by hotter summer and slight warmer winter

Summary

Introduction

Warm and cold extremes have been frequently occurred during recent several decades under global warming [4, 15, 23, 28, 32, 40]. The warming climate could lead to a rise of extreme high temperature events and reduction of the opposite extremes. Both the winter extreme cold events and summer heatwave cases, have been increased in the recent two decades [15, 28, 40], implying that the amplitude of the annual extreme temperature is enlarged under the context of global warming. It is found that the asymmetry or inconsistency is observed in the seasonal variation of temperature and existed in its spatial distribution [1, 23, 28], which means that the evolution of the extreme temperature events is very complicated under the comprehensive influences of multiple factors, and risk assessment based on these kinds of climate events should be reconsidered under climate change.

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Conclusion