Projecting the Summer Climate of Mainland China in the Middle 21st Century: Will the Droughts in North China Persist?

Abstract

Since no consensus has been reached in previous studies about how the summer climate in China will evolve in the first half of the 21st century, this issue is addressed here through sensitivity experiments by forcing an atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM), the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL)’s Atmospheric Model Version 2.0 (AM2) with projected sea surface temperature (SST) trend. A total of two SST trends from the Intergovernmental Panels on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Emissions Scenario (SRES) A1B are used. The two trends are from two coupled climate system models, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Community Climate System Model Version 3.0 (CCSM3) and the GFDL Climate Model Version 2.0 (CM2), respectively. Results consistently suggest a substantial warming and drying trend over much of China, with a surface air temperature increase of 1.0 2.0 ℃ and a 10% 20% decrease in rainfall. Exceptions are the areas from northwestern China to western North China as well as the southern Tibetan Plateau, which are projected to be wetter with a rainfall anomaly percentage increase of 10% 50%. The drying in eastern North China has not been documented to date but appears to be reasonable. Physically, it is attributed to anomalous northeasterly winds at the rear of a low-level cyclone over the South China Sea, the Philippines and the subtropical western North Pacific. These conditions, which govern the climate of eastern China, are forced by the northward shift of convection over warm waters due to additional warming.