Quantitative attribution of the temperature associated with winter extreme cold events in China

Abstract

Extreme cold events exert enormous impacts on the ecosystems and human health. A quantitative attribution analysis of the surface temperature anomalies associated with extreme cold events in China is conducted using an updated version of the coupled atmosphere-surface climate feedback response analysis method. For both extreme warm and cold years, the effects of anomalous surface albedo, water vapor, atmospheric dynamics, and aerosols are the major positive contributors, and the processes associated with surface dynamics provide a major negative effect. Specifically, the effect of surface albedo (water vapor) is directly linked to the change in local snow cover (precipitable water) over China. More local snow cover (precipitable water) provides a cooling (warming) effect and vice versa. The process associated with atmospheric dynamics exhibits an asymmetric contribution for the extreme warm and cold years. It provides a warming effect over most of China in the extreme warm years, which is possibly related to the nation-wide warm air advection. On the other hand, the effect of atmospheric dynamics displays large regional and year-to-year variations for the cold cases. In addition, a considerable impact of anthropogenic aerosols is detected over central-southern China, which is possibly related to the emission reduction policies in China since 2013. Although clouds show only a moderate impact on the national-averaged temperature anomalies, they provide a considerable effect over southern China.