Assessment of Change in Temperature and Precipitation over Xinjiang

In recent years, the investigation of the observed trends/changes in both the long-term climatic mean state and the intensity has been the focus of climate change research. Obviously these studies are important for understanding the projection of future climate change. Due to the temperature and precipitation play an important role in the global water and energy cycle, they have been recognized as the focus to deal with climate change on both regional and global scale.

Based on the daily observed data of temperature and precipitation from 50 meteorological stations of Xinjiang, researchers studied the climatic trends in Xinjiang, China, during the period of 1961–2008 in detail on the basis of several meteorological parameters: annual and seasonal mean precipitation, annual mean, minimum and maximum temperature. The results showed a significant increasing trend of 7.40mm decade⁻¹ in the annual mean precipitation and a relatively minimal upward trend of 1.45mm decade−1 in winter. The annual mean temperature increased significantly with an increasing trend of 0.30 ºC decade⁻¹. There was an increasing trend of 0.25 ºC decade⁻¹ in the annual maximum temperature and an increasing trend of 0.52 ºC decade⁻¹ in the annual minimum temperature.

This research was funded by the Knowledge Innovation key Project of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No.: KZCX2-YW-GJ04), the “Western Light” Project (RCPY200902) of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the National Natural Science Foundation (41071072).

The result has been published on Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 2012, 12: 1327-1331. The paper can be downloaded from http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/12/1327/2012/nhess-12-1327-2012.pdf.