Attribution of historical extreme heat events in different climate zones of China

Bibliographic Data

ID15548848
AuthorsYuxia Zhang (0000-0003-4419-7004, China Meteorological Administration, corresponding author), Ying Sun (0009-0008-7911-9034, China Meteorological Administration)
Year2025
Volume20
Issue3
Pages034013-034013
Publication date2025-02-05
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironmental Research Letters (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1748-9326 • E-ISSN: 1748-9326
PublisherIOP Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1088/1748-9326/adb2a8
OpenAlexW4407163132
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited48

China has a vast territory with diverse climates, including the arid, semi-arid, semi-humid and humid regions. Previous studies on extreme heat event attribution mainly focus on individual events in a specific region, with less attention paid to comparisons between historical events in different climate zones. Here, we use the number, seasonal length and intensity of hot days with daily maximum temperature exceeding 35 °C, to investigate human influence on extreme heat events in early and recent periods. It is clear that all three heat indicators have shown obvious increase across China since the early 1960s, with a rapid rise in recent years and the hottest event occurring in 2022. The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 models generally capture the temporal evolution of these indicators, but some biases exist. We utilize an annual cycle-based method to correct the model biases in climate state and then use the adjusted model results to conduct event attribution in different historical periods. We find that human influence has greatly increased the probability of recent events across all regions, while having no impact on early historical events. For the hottest 2022 event, the risk ratios for seasonal length of hot days in a few regions could not be estimated due to zero probability in the natural world, indicating that such events would not happen without human influence. In different climate zones, the risk ratios for all indicators in arid northwestern China exceed those in other regions when using consistent observational thresholds, indicating a greater response of extreme heat to anthropogenic forcing in this area. For the same event, attribution results of different indicators yield varying risk ratios, highlighting the importance of considering multiple indicators in event attribution. Additionally, model performance notably affects attribution results; without bias correction, human influence may be incorrectly estimated

Archaeology · Attribution · China · Climate change · Climatology · Extreme heat · Geography · Physical geography · Cryospheric studies and observations · Environmental Science · Plant Ecology and Soil Science · Psychology · Tree-ring climate responses · Geology · Oceanography

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