Temperature change and natural disasters in northwestern China

Abstract

It is projected that global warming will result in more natural disasters in the world. However, the global projection about the temperature-disaster association is based on instrumental records (<100 yr), which may be too short to account for the very long-term dynamics between temperature change and natural disasters. Besides, the temperature-disaster association may vary in different regions because of the influence of regional meteorology and geography. In this study, based on fine-grained paleo-temperature reconstructions and historical natural disaster data (including drought, flood, hail, frost, dust storms, pests and famine) over the extant period, we investigate whether the positive temperature-disaster association is valid in northwestern China in the very long-term. Our study area was delimited to the Gan-Ning-Qing Region (GNQR) for the period 1270–1949. Statistical results show that the multi-decadal variability of temperature was positively correlated with that of various disasters (particularly dust storm, flood, hail and pest) in GNQR, but their positive association was only moderate. Given that temperature may only be the indirect cause of natural disasters, and global warming may have changed the temperature-disaster relationship in northwestern China in recent decades, we should be cautious in assuming a positive association between temperature and natural disasters in northwestern China in the coming decades. Further research on this topic is needed.