From accelerated warming to warming hiatus in China

• Published in: International Journal of Climatology
• Main Authors: Xie, Yongkun, Huang, Jianping, Liu, Yuzhi
• Other Authors: National Natural Science Foundation of China
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2016
• Subjects: Global warming
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/joc.4809; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2Fjoc.4809; https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/joc.4809

ABSTRACT As the recent global warming hiatus has attracted worldwide attention, we examined the robustness of the warming hiatus in China and the related dynamical mechanisms in this study. Based on the results confirmed by the multiple data and trend analysis methods, we found that the annual mean temperature in China had a cooling trend during the recent global warming hiatus period, which suggested a robust warming hiatus in China. The warming hiatus in China was dominated by the cooling trend in the cold season, which was mainly induced by the more frequent and enhanced extreme‐cold events. By examining the variability of the temperature over different time scales, we found the recent warming hiatus was mainly associated with a downward change of decadal variability, which counteracted the background warming trend. Decadal variability was also much greater in the cold season than in the warm season, and also contributed the most to the previous accelerated warming. We found that the previous accelerated warming and the recent warming hiatus, and the decadal variability of temperature in China were connected to changes in atmospheric circulation. There were opposite circulation changes during these two periods. The westerly winds from the low to the high troposphere over the north of China all enhanced during the previous accelerated warming period, while it weakened during the recent hiatus. The enhanced westerly winds suppressed the invasion of cold air from the Arctic and vice versa. Less frequent atmospheric blocking during the accelerated warming period and more frequent blocking during the recent warming hiatus confirmed this hypothesis. Furthermore, variation in the Siberian High and East Asian winter monsoon season supports the given conclusions.