Abstract
Abstract. In the past decades, severe heat waves have frequently occurred in many parts of the world. These conspicuous heat waves exerted terrible influences on human health, society, the economy, agriculture, the ecosystem and so on. Based on observed daily temperatures in China, an integrated index of heat waves and extreme-temperature days was established involving the frequency, duration, intensity and scale of these events across large cities in China. Heat waves and extreme-temperature days showed an increasing trend in most regions except northwest China from 1955 to 2014. After the late 1980s, the increasing trend was more obvious than the decades before. The cities in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River were threatened by the most serious heat events in the past 60 years, especially Chongqing and Changsha. Due to the subtropical monsoon climate and special terrain, Chongqing experienced the most heat events in a long period of time. In particular, there was obvious fluctuation of hot years in 31 cities, which did not continuously rise with global warming; 21 cities mainly located in the eastern and southern regions of China had an obvious rising trend; eight cities had a clear declining trend which was mainly distributed in the western and northern regions of China; and there were no extreme-temperature days in Kunming and Lhasa in the past 60 years. The study revealed an obvious differentiation of heat events for 31 cities under climate change; heat threat in most cities is increasing but declining or remaining unchanged in the other cities. The trend is likely to intensify with global warming.
Highlights
In the past 100 years, global warming has been an apparent physical phenomenon in the whole world (Stocker et al, 2013)
Heat waves (HWs) engulfed many countries worldwide, impacting negatively on the whole population, especially the elderly and children (Horton et al, 2015; Liu et al, 2012; Angélil et al, 2017; Peterson et al, 2013); for example, in 2003, the European continent experienced an extraordinary heat waves (HWs) which was characterized by excessive long duration, unprecedented extreme temperature and a vast spatial scale
As stated earlier, when Tmax exceeds 35◦, it could be called a day with extreme temperatures in China; when Tmax exceeds 35◦ on more than 2 consecutive days, it could be defined as a heat wave (HW) event
Summary
In the past 100 years, global warming has been an apparent physical phenomenon in the whole world (Stocker et al, 2013). Heat waves (HWs) engulfed many countries worldwide, impacting negatively on the whole population, especially the elderly and children (Horton et al, 2015; Liu et al, 2012; Angélil et al, 2017; Peterson et al, 2013); for example, in 2003, the European continent experienced an extraordinary HW which was characterized by excessive long duration, unprecedented extreme temperature and a vast spatial scale This devastating HW took a heavy toll on human lives (at least 50 000 deaths) (Stott et al, 2004; Robine et al, 2008). In 2013, a similar HW was experienced in most parts of China with increased intensity and duration, resulting in significant economic loss (Sun et al, 2014)
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