Spatial Variability in Years of Abrupt Seasonal Temperature Changes and Warming (Cooling) Hiatuses in China from 1951–2018 and the Variation Trends before and after These Years

Response relationships between abrupt seasonal temperature changes/warming (cooling) hiatuses in China and their influencing factors

The mechanisms of abrupt seasonal temperature changes and warming (cooling) hiatuses remain unclear. Clarifying how they respond to various influencing factors is critically important to understanding their mechanisms. In this study, the influencing factors to which the abrupt changes in T_av, T_nav, and T_xav were most sensitive followed the order of (AGG and CO₂) > SR > WS > AMO > PDO > MEI > AO > AP > RH. Seasonal Tav had the greatest sensitivity to all influencing factors, followed by seasonal Tav and lastly by seasonal T_xav. An abrupt temperature change occurred when AGG, AMO, or SR increased continuously to a certain value, when PDO was in a positive phase (warm phase) and increased continuously to a certain value, when MEI changed abruptly, when WS and RH continued to decline for a certain time and reached a certain tendency rate, or when AP continued to decline for a certain time and reached a certain value. During the period before and after the warming (cooling) hiatuses, the temperature at most of the stations only had a significant relationship with a few influencing factors, and the hiatuses in seasonal T_av, T_nav, and T_xav were overall most sensitive to changes in WS, followed by changes in RH and lastly by changes in AP. The occurrence of warming (cooling) hiatuses was highly consistent with the variation trend of some influencing factors, which to some extent affected the warming (cooling) hiatuses. Abrupt seasonal temperature changes/warming (cooling) hiatuses are the combined effects of multiple influencing factors.

Vegetation response to climate zone dynamics and its impacts on surface soil water content and albedo in China

Extensive research has focused on the response of vegetation to climate change, including potential mechanisms and resulting impacts. Although many studies have explored the relationship between vegetation and climate change in China, research on spatiotemporal distribution changes of climate regimes using natural vegetation as an indicator is still lacking. Further, limited information is available on the response of vegetation to shifts in China's regional climatic zones. In this study, we applied Mann-Kendall, and correlation analysis to examine the variabilities in temperature, precipitation, surface soil water, normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI), and albedo in China from 1982 to 2012. Our results indicate significant shifts in the distribution of Köppen-Geiger climate classes in China from 12.08% to 18.98% between 1983 and 2012 at a significance level of 0.05 (MK). The percentage areas in the arid and continental zones expanded at a rate of 0.004%/y and 0.12%/y, respectively, while the percentage area in the temperate and alpine zones decreased by -0.05%/y and - 0.07%/y. Sensitivity fitting results between simulated and observed changes identified temperature to be a dominant control on the dynamics of temperate (r² = 0.98) and alpine (r² = 0.968) zones, while precipitation was the dominant control on the changes of arid (r² = 0.856) and continental (r² = 0.815) zones. The response of the NDVI to albedo infers a more pronounced radiative response in temperate (r = -0.82, p < .01) and alpine (r = -0.476, p < .05) compared to arid and continental zones. Furthermore, we identified more pronounced monthly increasing trends in NDVI and soil water, corresponding to weak changes in albedo during vegetation growing periods. Our results suggest that climate zone shifting has considerable impacts on the vegetation in China and will have larger ecological impacts through radiative or non-radiative feedback mechanisms in future warming scenarios.