Abstract
A hot spell is an extreme weather event with one or more consecutive days with daily maximum temperature exceeding a certain threshold of high temperature. Statistical modeling of summer hot spells in China during 1960–2005 and their simulations in the historical experiment of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) are investigated in this study. A technique called the hot spell model (HSM), introduced by Furrer et al. (Clim Res 43:191–205, 2010) for modeling hot spells by extending the point process approach to extreme value theory, is applied. Specifically, the frequency of summer hot spells is modeled by a Poisson distribution, their intensity is modeled by a generalized Pareto distribution, and their duration is modeled by a geometric distribution. Results show that the HSM permits realistic modeling of summer hot spells in China. Trends in the frequency, duration, and intensity of hot spells were estimated based on the HSM for the observed period from 1960 to 2005. Furthermore, the performance in simulating hot spell characteristics and trends from the CMIP5 historical run were assessed based on the HSM. Climate models with good performance were selected to conduct an ensemble projection of hot spell intensity, frequency, and duration and their trends in future decades.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Barnett TP, Schlesinger ME (1987) Detecting changes in global climate induced by greenhouse gases. J Geophys Res Atmos 92:14772–14780
Brown BG, Katz RW (1995) Regional analysis of temperature extremes: spatial analog for climate change? J Clim 8:108–119
Brown SJ, Caesar J, Ferro CAT (2008) Global changes in extreme daily temperature since 1950. J Geophys Res Atmos 113:D05115. doi:10.1029/2006JD008091
Coles S (2001) An introduction to statistical modeling of extreme values. Springer, London
Ding T, Qian WH (2011) Geographical patterns and temporal variations of regional dry and wet heatwave events in China during 1960–2008. Adv Atmos Sci 28(2):322–337
Ding Y, Sun Y, Wang Z, Zhu Y, Song Y (2009) Inter-decadal variation of the summer precipitation in China and its association with decreasing Asian summer monsoon. Part II: possible causes. Int J Climatol 29:1926–1944
Easterling DR, Meehl GA, Parmesan C et al (2000) Climate extremes: observations, modeling, and impacts. Science 289:2068–2074
Fischer T, Menz C, Su B, Scholten T (2013) Simulated and projected climate extremes in the Zhujiang River Basin, South China, using the regional climate model COSMO-CLM. Int J Climatol. doi:10.1002/joc.3643
Furrer EM, Katz RW (2008) Improving the simulation of extreme precipitation events by stochastic weather generators. Water Resour Res 44:W12439. doi:10.1029/2008WR007316
Furrer EM, Katz RW, Walter MD, Furrer R (2010) Statistical modeling of hot spells and heat waves. Clim Res 43:191–205
Gong D, Pan Y, Wang J (2004) Changes in extreme daily mean temperatures in summer in eastern China during 1955–2000. Theor Appl Climatol 77:25–37
Gumbel EJ (1958) Statistics of extremes. Columbia University Press, New York
Houghton JT, Ding Y, Griggs DJ, Noguer M, van der Linden PJ, Dai X, Maskell K, Johnson CA (eds) (2001) IPCC, 2001: Climate change 2001: the physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the third assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA
Hu Y, Dong W, He Y (2010) Impact of land surface forcings on mean and extreme temperature in eastern China. J Geophys Res 115:D19117. doi:10.1029/2009JD013368
Jones P, Horton E, Folland C, Hulme M, Parker D, Basnett T (1999) The use of indices to identify changes in climatic extremes. Clim Change 42:131–149
Jones P, Lister D, Li Q (2008) Urbanization effects in large-scale temperature records, with an emphasis on China. J Geophys Res 113:D16122. doi:10.1029/2008JD009916
Jones GS, Stott PA, Christidis N (2013) Attribution of observed historical near-surface temperature variations to anthropogenic and natural causes using CMIP5 simulations. J Geophys Res Atmos. 118:4001–4024
Karl TR, Nicholls N, Ghazi A (1999) CLIVAR/GCOS/WMO workshop on indices and indicators for climate extremes. Clim Change 42:3–7
Katz RW, Parlange MB, Naveau P (2002) Statistics of extremes in hydrology. Adv Water Resour 25:1287–1304
Katz RW, Brush GS, Parlange MB (2005) Statistics of extremes: modeling ecological disturbances. Ecology 86:1124–1134
Knutti R, Sedlacek J (2012) Robustness and uncertainties in the new CMIP5 coordinated climate model projections. Nat Clim Change 3:369–373
Legates DR, Davis RE (1997) The continuing search for an anthropogenic climate change signal: limitations of correlation based approaches. Geophys Res Lett 18:2319–2322
Li Z, Yan ZW (2009) Homogenized daily mean/maximum/minimum temperature series for China from 1960–2008. Atmos Oceanic Sci Lett 2:237–243
Li Z, Yan ZW (2010) Application of multiple analysis of series for homogenization to Beijing daily temperature series (1960–2006). Adv Atmos Sci 27(4):777–787. doi:10.1007/s00376-009-9052-0
Li Y, Cai W, Campbell EP (2005) Statistical modeling of extreme rainfall in southwest Western Australia. J Clim 18:852–863
Li L, Wang B, Zhou T (2007) Contributions of natural and anthropogenic forcings to the summer cooling over eastern China: an AGCM study. Geophys Res Lett 34:L18807. doi:10.1029/2007GL030541
Li H, Dai A, Zhou T, Lu J (2010) Responses of East Asian summer monsoon to historical SST and atmospheric forcing during 1950–2000. Clim Dyn 34:501–514
Meehl GA, Tebaldi C (2004) More intense, more frequent, and longer lasting heat waves in the 21st century. Science 305:994–997
Meehl GA et al (2000) An introduction to trends in extreme weather and climate events: Observations, socioeconomic impacts, terrestrial ecological impacts, and model projections. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 81:413–416
Menon S, Hansen J, Najarenko L, Luo Y (2002) Climate effects of black carbon aerosols in China and India. Science 297:2250–2252
Nogaj M, Yiou P, Parey S, Malek F, Naveau P (2006) Amplitude and frequency of temperature extremes over the North Atlantic region. Geophys Res Lett 33:L10801. doi:10.1029/2005GL024251
Parmesan C, Root TL, Willig MR (2000) Impacts of extreme weather and climate on terrestrial biota. Bull Am Meteor Soc 81:443–450
Qian W, Lin X (2004) Regional trends in recent temperature indices in China. Clim Res 27:119–134
Qian C, Zhou T (2014) Multidecadal variability of North China aridity and its relationship to PDO during 1900–2010. J Clim 27(3):1210–1222
Qian C, Yan ZW, Wu Z, Fu CB, Tu K (2011a) Trends in temperature extremes in association with weather-intraseasonal fluctuations in eastern China. Adv Atmos Sci 28(2):297–309
Qian C, Wu Z, Fu C, Wang D (2011b) On changing El Niño: a view from time-varying annual cycle, interannual variability and mean state. J Clim 24(24):6486–6500
Ren GY, Chu ZY, Chen ZH, Ren YY (2007) Implications of temporal change in urban heat island intensity observed at Beijing and Wuhan stations. Geophys Res Lett 34:L05711. doi:10.1029/2006GL027927
Ren GY, Zhou YQ, Chu ZY, Zhou JX, Zhang AY, Guo J, Liu XF (2008) Urbanization effects on observed surface air temperature trends in north China. J Clim 21:1333–1348
Robinson PJ (2001) On the definition of a heat wave. J Appl Meteorol 40:762–775
Santer BD, Wigley TML, Jones PD (1993) Correlation methods in fingerprint detection studies. Clim Dyn 8:265–276
Sillmann J, Kharin VV, Zhang X, Zwiers FW, Bronaugh D (2013a) Climate extremes indices in the CMIP5 multimodel ensemble: Part 1. Model evaluation in the present climate. J Geophys Res Atmos 118:1716–1733
Sillmann J, Kharin VV, Zwiers FW, Zhang X, Bronaugh D (2013b) Climate extremes indices in the CMIP5 multimodel ensemble: part 2. Future climate projections. J Geophys Res Atmos 118:2473–2493
Smith RL (1989) Extreme value analysis of environmental time series: An application to trend detection in ground-level ozone (with discussion). Stat Sci 4:367–393
Solomon S, Qin D, Manning M, Chen Z, Marquis M, Averyt KB, Tignor M, Miller HL (eds) (2007) IPCC, 2007: Climate change 2007: the physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA
Stocker TF, Qin D, Plattner GK, Tignor M, Allen SK, Boschung J, Nauels A, Xia Y, Bex V, Midgley PM (eds) IPCC, 2013: climate change 2013: the physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA
Su BD, Jiang T, Jin WB (2006) Recent trends in observed temperature and precipitation extremes in the Yangtze River basin, China. Theor Appl Climatol 83(1–4):139–151
Tao S, Wei J (2006) The westward, northward advance of the subtropical high over the west Pacific in summer. J Appl Meteorol Sci 17(5):513–525 (in Chinese)
Taylor KE, Stouffer RJ, Meehl GA (2012) An overview of CMIP5 and the experiment design. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 93:485–498
Todorovic P, Zelenhasic E (1970) A stochastic model for flood analysis. Water Resour Res 6:1641–1648
Ueda H, Iwai A, Kuwako K, Hori ME (2006) Impact of anthropogenic forcing on the Asian summer monsoon as simulated by eight GCMs. Geophys Res Lett 33:L06703. doi:10.1029/2005GL025336
Wang W, Zhou W, Wang X, Fong SK, Leong KC (2013a) Summer high temperature extremes in Southeast China associated with the East Asian jet stream and circumglobal teleconnection. J Geophys Res Atmos 118. doi:10.1002/jgrd.50633
Wang X, Zhou W, Wang D, Wang C (2013b) The impacts of the summer Asian jet stream biases on surface air temperature in mid-eastern China in IPCC AR4 models. Int J Climatol 33:265–276. doi:10.1002/joc.3419
Wang W, Zhou W, Chen D (2014) Summer high temperature extremes in Southeast China: bonding with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation and East Asian summer monsoon coupled system. J Clim 27:4122–4138
Xu Q (2001) Abrupt change of the mid-summer climate in central east China by the influence of atmospheric pollution. Atmos Environ 35:5029–5040
Yan Z, Yang C, Jones PD (2001) Influence of inhomogeneity on the estimation of mean and extreme temperature trends in Beijing and Shanghai. Adv Atmos Sci 18:309–322
Yan Z, Jones PD, Davies TD et al (2002) Trends of extreme temperatures in Europe and China based on daily observations. Clim Change 53:355–392
Yan Z, Li Z, Li Q, Jones P (2010) Effects of site change and urbanization in the Beijing temperature series 1977–2006. Int J Climatol 30:1226–1234
Yan Z, Xia J, Qian C et al (2011) Changes in seasonal cycle and extremes in China during the period 1960–2008. Adv Atmos Sci 28:269–283
You Q, Kang S, Aguilar E, Yan Y (2008) Changes in daily climate extremes in the eastern and central Tibetan Plateau during 1961–2005. J Geophys Res 113:D07101. doi:10.1029/2007JD009389
Yu R, Zhou T (2007) Seasonality and three-dimensional structure of the interdecadal change in East Asian monsoon. J Clim 20:5344–5355
Yu R, Wang B, Zhou T (2004) Tropospheric cooling and summer monsoon weakening trend over East Asia. Geophys Res Lett 31:L22212. doi:10.1029/2004GL021270
Zhai P, Pan XH (2003) Trends in temperature extremes during 1951–1999 in China. Geophys Res Lett 30(17):1913–1916
Zhang H, Li Y (2009) Potential impacts of land-use on climate variability and extremes. Adv Atmos Sci 26:840–854
Zhang JY, Wu LY (2011) Land-atmosphere coupling amplifies hot extremes over China. Chin Sci Bull 56:3328–3332
Zhang XB, Zwiers FW, Li GL (2004) Monte Carlo experiments on the detection of trends in extreme values. J Clim 17:1945–1952
Zhang Q, Xu C-Y, Zhang Z, Ren G, Chen YD (2008) Climate change or variability? The case of Yellow River as indicated by extreme maximum and minimum air temperature during 1960–2004. Theor Appl Climatol 93:35–43
Zhao M, Pitman AJ (2002) The impact of land cover change and increasing carbon dioxide on the extreme and frequency of maximum temperature and convective precipitation. Geophys Res Lett 29:1078. doi:10.1029/2001GL013476
Zhou W, Li CY, Chan JCL (2006) The interdecadal variations of the summer monsoon rainfall over South China. Meteorol Atmos Phys. doi:10.1007/S00703-006-018-9
Acknowledgments
This study is supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China Grant 41175079 and 41376025, the Macao Meteorological and Geophysical Bureau (SMG) Project 9231048, and the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Grant XDA11010403. Y. Li was supported by CSIRO Climate Adaptation Flagship. This work was initiated when the first author visited CSIRO in his PhD study leave during 1 October–30 November 2011, supported by Chow Yei Ching School of Graduate Studies, City University of Hong Kong.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wang, W., Zhou, W., Li, Y. et al. Statistical modeling and CMIP5 simulations of hot spell changes in China. Clim Dyn 44, 2859–2872 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-014-2287-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-014-2287-1