Have human activities changed the frequencies of absolute extreme temperatures in eastern China

Extreme temperatures affect populous regions, like eastern China, causing substantial socio-economic losses. It is beneficial to explore whether the frequencies of absolute or threshold-based extreme temperatures have been changed by human activities, such as anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs). In this study, we compared observed and multi-model-simulated changes in the frequencies of summer days, tropical nights, icy days and frosty nights in eastern China for the years 1960-2012 by using an optimal fingerprinting method. The observed long-term trends in the regional mean frequencies of these four indices were +2.36, +1.62, -0.94, -3.02 days decade -1 . The models performed better in simulating the observed frequency change in daytime extreme temperatures than nighttime ones. Anthropogenic influences are detectable in the observed frequency changes of these four temperature extreme indices. The influence of natural forcings could not be detected robustly in any indices. Further analysis found that the effects of GHGs changed the frequencies of summer days (tropical nights, icy days, frosty nights) by +3.48 1.45 (+2.99 1.35, -2.52 1.28, -4.11 1.48) days decade -1 . Other anthropogenic forcing agents (dominated by anthropogenic aerosols) offset the GHG effect and changed the frequencies of these four indices by -1.53 0.78, -1.49 0.94, +1.84 1.07, +1.45 1.26 days decade -1 , respectively. Little influence of natural forcings was found in the observed frequency changes of these four temperature extreme indices

Atmospheric sciences · Biology · China · Climate change · Climatology · Forcing (mathematics · Geography · Greenhouse gas · Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics · Climate Change and Health Impacts · Climate variability and models · Environmental Science · Ecology · Geology

• Improving China’s Resilience to Climate-Related Risks

  Open Access•Yujie Wang, Lianchun Song et al.•Weather, Climate, and Society•2020

  Incluir item

• Detectable anthropogenic influence on summer compound hot events over China from 1965 to 2014

  Open Access•Xiaoxin Wang, Xianmei Lang et al.•Environmental Research Letters•2022

  Incluir item

• Century-scale attribution and constrained projection of temperature extremes in eastern China

  Open Access•Ting Hu, Ying Sun•Environmental Research Letters•2025

  Incluir item

• Relation between Elevated Ambient Temperature and Mortality

  Rupa Basu•Epidemiologic Reviews•2002

  Incluir item

• Human contribution to the European heatwave of 2003

  Open Access•Peter A Stott, Dáithí A Stone et al.•Nature•2004

  Incluir item

• Influence of extreme weather disasters on global crop production

  Open Access•Corey Lesk, Pedram Rowhani et al.•Nature•2016

  Incluir item

• Global observed changes in daily climate extremes of temperature and precipitation

  Open Access•Lisa V Alexander, Xiaodan Zhang et al.•Journal of Geophysical Research:…•2006

  Incluir item

• Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation

  Open Access•M Jarraud, Simon K Allen et al.•Managing the Risks of Extreme…•2012

  Incluir item

• Attribution of extreme weather and climate‐related events

  Open Access•Peter A Stott, Nikolaos Christidis et al.•Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews…•2016

  Incluir item

• Indices for monitoring changes in extremes based on daily temperature and precipitation data

  Open Access•Xuebin Zhang, Lisa V Alexander et al.•Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews…•2011

  Incluir item